Drug abuse risk and protective factors among Hispanic adolescents

Abstract

Drug use is a disquieting problem among the growing population of U.S. Hispanic adolescents. This study examined risk and protective factors associated with drug use in a sample of 507 Hispanic adolescents. Data were collected in 2014 and 2015 from youths across the United States. The sample had a mean age of 14.1 years and was 37.3% male. Youths responded to an online questionnaire about their drug use and risk and protective factors associated with drug use. Negative self-image, higher levels of stress, weaker coping skills, peer drug use, lower levels of self-control, goal-setting, problem-solving skills, and self-efficacy, and higher intentions to use drugs in the future were associated with increased odds of past-month drug use. Youths with higher self-images who spoke mostly English at home were less likely to use drugs than youths with higher self-images who spoke mostly Spanish at home.Study results have implications for gaining a better understanding of drug use risk and protective factors among America's growing population of Hispanic adolescents. Efforts to better examine and enhance Hispanic youths' cognitive-behavioral skills seem a wise investment.

Prospective Associations Among Youth Assets and Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drug Use in a Hispanic Youth Population

“…The results were particularly notable in that all four family-level assets (parental monitoring, relationship with mother, relationship with father, and family communication) significantly reduced the odds of ATD in this Hispanic youth population. The protective effects of family-level assets from ATD are consistent with research that suggests that familism is protective against harmful behaviors (Atherton et al, 2016;Ma et al, 2017;Smokowski & Bacallao, 2006), and that a decline in family closeness may increase the risk of participating in ATD for Hispanic youth (Bacio et al, 2013;Schinke et al, 2016). Relatedly, it should be noted that the strongest asset/ATD association indicated in this study was for parental monitoring.…”

“…These results suggest that family-related youth assets may hold particular promise in regard to protecting Hispanic youth from engaging in alcohol, tobacco, and other drug (ATD). However, research to date has relied on the analysis of cross-sectional data (Schinke et al, 2016;Unger et al, 2014) or has focused on a limited number of assets. The present study extends research in this area by analyzing longitudinal data to determine whether 17 youth assets, believed to influence behavior across multiple levels of influence, significantly reduce the odds of ATD by Hispanic youth.…”

Are Sports-Related Factors Correlated to the Prevalence and Initiation of Illicit Drug Misuse in Adolescence? Prospective Study in Older Adolescents

“…Although most teens do not escalate from so-called “trying drugs” to developing addictive behaviors, even experimenting with illicit drugs is a problem. Namely, even irregular IDM can result in serious consequences (i.e., unsafe sex, intoxicated driving, injecting, and violent behavior), and therefore even the rare IDM can pose a serious health-related (i.e., HIV, hepatitis-C) and social-related (i.e., traffic accidents, violence) risk [6–8]. Although serious social- and health-related problems are related to consumption of other substances and not solely to IDM, the fact is that the consumption of other substances (i.e., alcohol and tobacco products) is at least partially legal in most countries.…”

Evaluación de la Intervención Preventiva para Estudiantes Adolescentes en Riesgo (IPEA-R) en estudiantes de secundaria

“…En cuanto a la variable habilidades de resistencia a la presión de amigos para el consumo de alcohol, se cuenta con antecedentes de su importancia y efecto para el logro de la abstinencia en personas que consumen drogas (Flores & Barragan, 2010;Oropeza et al, 2007). Sin embargo, en esta investigación se demostró que las habilidades de resistencia a la presión se pueden enseñar a población adolescente que no ha consumido drogas, como un recurso preventivo (Schinke et al, 2016).…”