Hispanic Adolescents With Severe Substance Abuse Issues: Parental Involvement, Acculturation-Related Factors and Attachment

Abstract

The sample for this study consisted of 94 adolescent-mother pairs. The adolescent sample was 65% male, and 35% female, with a mean age of 15 years. More than half of the adolescents were born in the United States (60%) and had resided in the U.S. for an average of 12 years; 80% of the caregivers (primarily mothers) were foreign-born and lived in the U.S. for an average of 21 years.Correlation and hierarchical regression were used to answer the research questions. The findings indicate that the hypothesized model and corresponding anticipated effect of the relationship between parental school and peer involvement on vii adolescents' frequency of alcohol, marijuana and cocaine use was not supported by the data. Parental "acculturation-related" variables did not explain any of the variance in adolescent substance use frequency in this sample. Mediation and moderation models were not supported either. However, some interesting relationships were found: