Risk factors for adolescent substance abuse and dependence: Data from a national sample.

Abstract

A national household probability sample of 4,023 adolescents aged 12 to 17 years was interviewed by telephone about substance use, victimization experiences, familial substance use, and posttraumatic reactions to identify risk factors for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-(4th ed.; American Psychiatric Association, 1994) defined substance abuse/dependence. Age and ethnicity data were available for 3,907 participants. Major findings were (a) adolescents who had been physically assaulted, who had been sexually assaulted, who had witnessed violence, or who had family members with alcohol or drug use problems had increased risk for current substance abuse/dependence; (b) posttraumatic stress disorder independently increased risk of marijuana and hard drug abuse/dependence; and (c) when effects of other variables were controlled, African Americans, but not Hispanics or Native Americans, were at approximately 1/3 the risk of substance abuse/dependence as Caucasians.

Relative contributions of parent substance use and childhood maltreatment to chronic homelessness, depression, and substance abuse problems among homeless women: mediating roles of self-esteem and abuse in adulthood

“…Furthermore, parental substance abuse has been described as a dominant characteristic among households implicated in child abuse cases (Felitti et al, 1998;Fleming, 1998;Kelleher, Chaffrin, Hollenberg, & Fischer, 1994;Sheridan, 1995). Similar results have been reported in national probability-based household samples (Kilpatrick et al, 2000).…”

Taxometric Investigation of PTSD: Data From Two Nationally Representative Samples

“…A multistage, random digit dialing sampling procedure was utilized to construct the national probability sample and oversample. A detailed description of the sampling methods used to collect data for the NSA is provided elsewhere ( [Kilpatrick et al, 2000] and [Kilpatrick et al, 2003] ). As with the NWS-II (see Study 2), the PTSD module was administered to all participants in the NSA, including those who did not endorse any of the forms of victimization assessed during the interview.…”

Experiences of victimization among adolescents with Substance Abuse Disorders in Sweden

“…The results are mixed with regard to alcohol use, with some studies establishing a connection between victimization during childhood and high alcohol consumption among older teenagers and young adults (17,21); other studies have not been able to find these correlations (6,22).…”

“…Experiences of both direct and indirect victimization have been shown to influence later drug abuse among adolescents (22)(23)(24), although psychological abuse has a somewhat lower correlation with drug abuse as compared with physical and sexual abuse (1). The cumulative effect of poly-victimization is also related to more severe drug abuse (6,7,23), and adolescents who have been exposed to both physical and sexual abuse are at particularly high risk for drug abuse (1,7).…”

“…Because the causal connection is unclear, some researchers argue that victimization primarily results in various psychiatric symptoms (e.g., anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, conduct disorder, risk taking of various kinds), which in turn may lead to both experimental drug use and later to addictive disorders of a more serious nature (3,7,22,27). The degree of victimization is often related to the degree of psychiatric disorder (2,28).…”