Parental influence on substance use in adolescent social networks - PubMed (original) (raw)

Parental influence on substance use in adolescent social networks

Holly B Shakya et al. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2012 Dec.

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the relationship between the parenting style of an adolescent's peers' parents and an adolescent's substance use.

Design: Longitudinal survey.

Setting: Adolescents across the United States were interviewed at school and at home.

Participants: Nationally representative sample of adolescents in the United States.

Main exposure: Authoritative vs neglectful parenting style of adolescent's parents and adolescent's friends' parents and adolescent substance use.

Main outcome measures: Adolescent alcohol abuse, smoking, marijuana use, and binge drinking.

Results: If an adolescent had a friend whose mother was authoritative, that adolescent was 40% (95% CI, 12%-58%) less likely to drink to the point of drunkenness, 38% (95% CI, 5%-59%) less likely to binge drink, 39% (95% CI, 12%-58%) less likely to smoke cigarettes, and 43% (95% CI, 1%-67%) less likely to use marijuana than an adolescent whose friend's mother was neglectful, controlling for the parenting style of the adolescent's own mother, school-level fixed effects, and demographics. These results were only partially mediated by peer substance use.

Conclusions: Social network influences may extend beyond the homogeneous dimensions of own peer or own parent to include extradyadic influences of the wider network. The value of parenting interventions should be reassessed to take into account these spillover effects in the greater network.

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Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1

Illustrative network maps of one school in Add Health (_N_=304). Each node represents an adolescent and each arrow between them a friendship nomination. Node color indicates substance use behavior, yellow for drinking alcohol (upper left), gray for smoking tobacco (upper right), red for smoking marijuana (lower left), and orange for binge drinking (lower right). Green nodes indicate adolescents who do not engage in the substance abuse behavior shown in that panel. Circle nodes are adolescents with an authoritative parent, and square nodes are those with some other type (neglectful, authoritarian, or permissive). The size of each node is proportional to the number of friend’s parents who are authoritative. These figures show that behavior tends to cluster in the social network, and adolescents who do not engage in substance abuse are often connected to authoritative parents via their friends, even if their own parents are not authoritative (indicated by large green squares).

Figure 2

Figure 2

Percent increase in risk (includes 95% CI) of abusing alcohol, smoking, using marijuana, and binge drinking for an adolescent whose peer engages in the same behavior. All probabilities are estimated controlling for respondent age, gender, race, mother’s education, mother’s income, Wave I substance abuse, parent’s Wave I and Wave II parenting style, friend’s Wave I substance abuse, friend’s parent’s Wave I and Wave II parenting style, plus school level fixed effects.

Figure 3

Figure 3

Percent decrease in risk (includes 95% CI) of abusing alcohol, smoking, using marijuana or binge drinking for adolescents whose parents are authoritative versus adolescents who parents are neglectful. All probabilities are estimated controlling for respondent age, gender, race, mother’s education, mother’s income, Wave I substance abuse, parent’s Wave I parenting style, friend’s Wave I substance abuse, friend’s parent’s Wave I and Wave II parenting style, plus school level fixed effects.

Figure 4

Figure 4

Percent decrease in risk (includes 95% CI) of abusing alcohol, smoking, using marijuana or binge drinking for adolescents whose peers’ parents are authoritative versus adolescents whose peers’ parents are neglectful. All probabilities are estimated controlling for respondent age, gender, race, mother’s education, mother’s income, Wave I substance abuse, parent’s Wave I and Wave II parenting style, friend’s Wave I substance abuse, friend’s parent’s Wave I parenting style, plus school level fixed effects.

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