Being lonely or using substances with friends? A cross-sectional study of Hungarian adolescents’ health risk behaviours

Abstract

BackgroundStudying adolescents’ health risk behaviours is oddly significant in Central and Eastern European countries, where the prevalence of smoking and drinking among 14–18 year old students is significantly high. The goal of our study is to examine the role of social psychological and social behavioural variables in health risk behaviours among Hungarian adolescents.MethodsOur sample was comprised of three high schools of Debrecen (the second largest city of Hungary). In all, 501 students filled in the questionnaire from 22 classes (14–22 years old). Students aged above 18 years were excluded for the purpose of the study, giving a total sample size of 471 high school students. Descriptive statistics and binary logistic regression analyses were conducted.ResultsAccording to our results (1) social behavioural factors (namely, smoking and alcohol use of the best friend and peer group) proved to be better predictors of adolescents’ health risk behaviours as compared to the included social psychological attributes (2); among the latter ones, loneliness and shyness were negatively related with both smoking and drinking, while competitiveness was a predictor of drinking prevalence among boys.ConclusionsThe findings suggest that social behavioural factors, including smoking and drinking of friends, are oddly important predictors of Hungarian adolescents’ health risk behaviours. According to our results, health policy should pay more attention to peer norms related to smoking and drinking during school health promotion. Developing health protective social norms may be an indispensable component of effective health promotion in high schools.

Clusters of alcohol and drug use and other health-risk behaviors among Thai secondary school students: a latent class analysis

“…These results are consistent with other studies in which having drug using family members and friends increased the risk of health-risk behaviors among adolescents [ 41 , 42 ]. Similarly, other studies have found that smoking and alcohol use by friends increased the risk of alcohol use and other health-risk behaviors by the adolescents [ 43 , 44 ] while perceived peer norms on drug use were influential on alcohol and cannabis use among early adolescents [ 45 ]. This suggests that adolescent health-risk behaviors can be conceptualized as a result of both peer influence and selection processes, with peer influences enhancing risk-taking among adolescents [ 46 ] and adolescents selecting friends who engage in similar levels of risk behaviors.…”

Youth Problem Drinking: The Role of Parental and Familial Relationships

“…All the scales and questionnaire items were translated into Hungarian and back translated by bilingual translators, and the majority of them have been applied and adapted to Hungarian adolescent populations in previous studies (Piko et al, 2005;Varga & Piko, 2015).…”

The direct and indirect effect of loneliness on the development of adolescent alcohol use in the United Kingdom

“…Across a range of populations and study types, conflicting evidence on the relationship between loneliness and alcohol consumption has been presented. Some correlational studies in College students ( McBroom, Fife, & Nelson, 2008 ), and adolescents ( Varga & Piko, 2015 ), have shown an inverse relationship between loneliness and alcohol use; whereas others have provided a positive correlation between the two in adult ( Bonin, McCreary, & Sadava, 2000 ), student ( Cacioppo, Hawkley, Crawford, et al, 2002 ), and adolescent ( Barbosa Filho et al, 2012 , Carvalho et al, 2011 ) populations.…”