Relationships among risk knowledge, attitudes and ability to resist substance abuse in adolescents

Abstract

The Ministries of Justice and Education have implemented adolescent substance abuse prevention programs for many years. Rates of substance abuse among high school students continue to rise in spite of such programs. This study investigates adolescents' substance abuse-related knowledge and attitudes and self-confidence to resist substance use in order to identify predictive factors of poor adolescent resistance to substance use. A cross-sectional study survey gathered data on substance abuse-related knowledge and attitudes and self-confidence to resist substance use from 243 second-year senior high school students studying at two schools in northern Taiwan. Participants were most knowledgeable about tobacco (80.2%), followed by alcohol (72.0%), ecstasy (56.0%), and marijuana (30.0%). Only 19.3% demonstrated an understanding of the harmful effects of using Ketamine. A 10-point Likert scale measured participant substance use attitudes. Alcohol was the substance participants were most willing to use (2.18 ± 3.27), followed by tobacco (0.66 ± 2.19), ecstasy (0.45 ± 1.88), Ketamine (0.43 ± 1.93), and marijuana (0.38 ± 1.83). Participants had higher awareness of the harmful effects of Ketamine (t = -2.37, p = .018), marijuana (t = -2.33, p = .021), and tobacco (t = -2.02, p = .044), with participants reporting greater self-confidence to resist using these three substances. Multiple regression analysis found the three most important factors affecting participant self-confidence to resist substance use to be gender (β= .26, p < .001), knowledge about the substance (β= .15, p = .028), and attitude toward substance use (β= -.20, p < .001). Level of harmful effects knowledge and attitudes toward use varied among the various substances considered in this paper. Being female, having strong knowledge about the substance, and negative attitude toward substance use correlated with higher levels of self-confidence to resist substance use. Study results will be used in ongoing research designed to establish an empirical basis for adolescent substance use prevention and research, the results of which may be used directly by school nurses and military training education nurses.