The Relationship of Social Adjustment and Resilience with Attitudes Towards Drugs in High School Boy and Girl Students

Abstract

Background: Drug abuse and its destructive consequences are among challenging issues concerning students’ health. Objectives: The present study aimed to investigate the relationship of social adjustment and resilience with attitude towards drugs in boy and girl students of Lali City. Methods: The study was a descriptive correlational study performed by path analysis. The study population included 1500 boy and girl high school students of Lali City in the academic year of 2017 - 2018, among whom 133 boys and 142 girls were selected through multistage stratified sampling and using Cochran’s formula. Research instruments included Bell’s Adjustment Inventory (BAI) for Students, the Connor-Davidson Resilience scale (CD-RISC), and the Drug Attitude scale (DAS). The collected data were analyzed using SPSS version 23. Results: The results revealed a significant negative relationship between social adjustment and girl students’ attitudes towards drugs (P < 0.001); however, there was no significant relationship between social adjustment and attitudes towards drugs in boy students. Meanwhile, there was no direct and significant relationship between resilience and attitudes towards drugs in boy and girl students. On the other hand, a significant positive relationship was observed between resilience and social adjustment in boys (P < 0.01) and girls (P < 0.05). The indirect impact of resilience on the students’ attitudes towards drugs, mediated by social adjustment, was not significant. Conclusions: Resilience reduces stress, and as a result, students with more resilience seem to have better coping skills, higher social adjustment, and negative attitudes towards drugs.