Risk and protective factors as predictors of adolescent alcohol involvement and transitions in alcohol use: a prospective analysis (original) (raw)
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Risk and Protective Factors for Problematic Drinking in Early Adolescence: A Systematic Approach
Child Psychiatry & Human Development
Alcohol use during early adolescence is associated with other risk behaviors as well as future health problems. Within the design of a larger prospective research program, a cohort of U.S. inner-city sixth-grade students (N = 1573, mean age = 12.10) were assessed and reassessed in the seventh-grade. Self-reported information was obtained on problems related to alcohol, fixed markers of risk (e.g. sex, age, SES), individual and interpersonal factors (e.g. internalizing and externalizing symptoms) and contextual factors (e.g. substance availability). Alcohol-related problems in seventh grade were foremost predicted by individual and interpersonal factors in the sixth grade including depressive symptoms, conduct problems, a decreased perception of wrongdoing, and affiliation with delinquent peers. In addition, alcohol use in the sixth grade and being of Hispanic or White ethnicity was also associated with subsequent alcohol-related problems. Interventions should be directed towards assessing and treating individual risk factors such as depression and externalizing symptoms.
Psychological bulletin, 1992
The authors suggest that the most promising route to effective strategies for the prevention of adolescent alcohol and other drug problems is through a risk-focused approach. This approach requires the identification of risk factors for drug abuse, identification of methods by which risk factors have been effectively addressed, and application of these methods to appropriate high-risk and general population samples in controlled studies. The authors review risk and protective factors for drug abuse, assess a number of approaches for drug abuse prevention potential with high-risk groups, and make recommendations for research and practice.
An Examination of Different Etiological Pathways to Alcohol Use and Misuse in Adolescence
Introduction: Alcohol abuse, especially among adolescents, causes important health, economic and social problems. Different theoretical pathways have been suggested for the etiology of alcohol use and abuse. The aim of our study was to describe some of these different etiological pathways in adolescents. We explored the importance and specific role of personality, cognitive variables (motives and drinking refusal self-efficacy under social pressure) and environmental variables (antinormative behavior of friends) in each etiological pathway. Method: We assessed in a sample of 201 high school students (47.3% females; mean age 15,41 years; SD = 1,124) the influence of these variables. Results: structural equation modelling showed the co-occurrence of 4 main etiological pathways: coping motives fully mediated the association between neuroticism and alcohol-related problems (negative affect regulation pathway), extraversion was linked to alcohol use at the weekend and alcohol-related problems through social drinking motives (positive affect regulation pathway), extraversion and low agreeableness was related to drinking at the weekend, alcohol-related problems and motives through anti-normative behavior of friends (deviance proneness pathway); finally, low extraversion, low neuroticism and conscientiousness was negatively associated with alcohol use and abuse through a greater drinking refusal self-efficacy in front of social pressure (force of will pathway). Conclusions: We observed the relevance of distal (personality domains) and more proximal variables (anti-normative behavior of friends, drinking refusal self-efficacy-social pressure and motives) in adolescent alcohol use and abuse, illustrating the complex interplay of these factors.
Adolescent Risk Factors and the Prediction of Persistent Alcohol and Drug Use into Adulthood
Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 1997
Adolescence is a time of heightened risk for relatively intensive alcohol and other drug use behaviors. However, heavy use is often "adolescence-limited," giving way to moderation or cessation in adulthood. We examined individual differences in risk factors at age 18 that were predictive of alternative alcohol and drug use trajectories from adolescence to adulthood. Data were collected prospectively on four occasions from participants in the Rutgers Health and Human Development Project. Subsets of individuals representing three prototypical trajectories of (1) consistently low alcohol and drug use during adolescence and early adulthood; (2) heavier alcohol or drug use during adolescence, but not during adulthood; and (3) persistent heavier alcohol or drug use from adolescence into adulthood were found to differ significantly on a number of intrapersonal, behavioral, and environmental risk factors, with the adolescencelimited group consistently scoring between the other two groups. Based on these results, a composite risk index was constructed. In the total sample, however, when the effect of alcohol and drug use behaviors at age 18 was controlled, the composite risk index was unrelated to adult (age 28 to 31) levels of alcohol and drug use and consequences. Thus, in this community sample, well-documented risk factors assessed in adolescence did not exhibit any direct, longterm effects on use intensity and problems in adulthood. It is concluded that the assessed risk factors (disinhibtion, cognitive structure, play, deviant coping, friends' deviance, and stressful life events) are not immutable, but subject to individual and normative changes during the transition from adolescence to adulthood. More research is needed to determine the long-term stability of risk factors, and how changes in risk factors over time, discontinuities in what constitutes risk in adolescence versus adulthood, and proximal adult protective factors that Compensate for early risk contribute to developmental patterns of use.
Adolescent Alcohol Use Before and After the High School Transition
Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 2015
Background: An important question is whether the high-school entry is a critical developmental event associated with escalation of alcohol use. The present study examined trajectories of adolescent alcohol use as a function of a normative developmental event, the high-school entry. In addition, given that at-risk youth may be particularly vulnerable to the stress associated with this transition, we examined how these alcohol use trajectories may be shaped by a measure of early behavioral risk, early adolescent delinquency. Methods: Participants included 891 12-year olds from the prospective National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-1997 (NLSY97) for whom relevant longitudinal school data were available (51.2% boys; 61.4% White). Results: Alcohol use after high-school entry increased at a significantly greater rate than did use during the middle-school years, even after accounting for students' age at transition. In addition, early delinquency emerged as a risk factor such that differences in alcohol use existed prior to the transition. That is, children with early delinquency characteristics displayed more rapid progression in alcohol use, but this effect was evident only during middle school. Conclusions: High-school entry appears to be a critical developmental event associated with increased social risk for greater alcohol use that goes beyond the simple maturational (i.e., ageing) factors. Youth with behavioral problems appear to be at greater risk in middle school, in contrast to lower risk youth for whom high school entry may be a more critical event, in part because high school is a less restrictive environment and/or because alcohol use becomes more normative at that time. Adolescent substance use may be described as a series of distinct developmental stages that closely correspond to school transitions, and suggest a critical period for targeted intervention that may differ as a function of pre-existing risk.
Socioaffective neuroscience & psychology, 2013
Early adolescence is a key developmental period for the initiation of alcohol use, and consumption among adolescents is characterized by drinking in high quantities. At the same time, adolescence is characterized by rapid biological transformations including dramatic changes in the brain, particularly in the prefrontal cortex and the mesocorticolimbic dopamine system. This article begins with an overview of the unique neural and behavioural characteristics of adolescent development that predispose these individuals to seek rewards and take risks such as initiation of drinking and high levels of alcohol intake. The authors then outline important factors associated with an increased risk for developing alcohol problems in later adolescence and young adulthood. Thereafter they address causality and the complex interplay of risk factors that lead to the development of alcohol use problems in late adolescence and young adults. A few recommendations for the prevention of underage drinking...