Teenage Drug Use Research Articles

An uneasy alliance: combining qualitative and quantitative research methods.

The paper describes the difficulties encountered in trying to combine qualitative and quantitative research methods in a study of the relationship between moral reasoning and teenage drug use. Four problems that arose in the attempt to reduce qualitative data to a quantitative format are described. These problems are: (1) making analytic sense of singular responses; (2) a mistaken logical inference that demands that each pattern of judgment should have discrete behavioral indicators; (3) the construction and use of ideal types; and (4) making analytic sense of universal responses. The roots of these problems are then traced to the underlying philosophical premises that distinguish the qualitative and quantitative research paradigms. The implications of the different goals, assumptions, and standards of evaluation informing each of the respective methods for future research are discussed.

A Longitudinal Study of the Effects of Teenage Drug Use: Evaluation of Individual and Societal Costs

A Longitudinal Study of the Effects of Teenage Drug Use: Evaluation of Individual and Societal Costs

Substance use and abuse among children and teenagers.

During the past several years, there has been a renewed national concern about drug abuse, culminating in the current "war on drugs." In this review, we emphasize that even though child or teenage drug use is an individual behavior, it is embedded in a sociocultural context that strongly determines its character and manifestations. Our focus is on psychoactive substances both licit (cigarettes and alcohol) and illicit (e.g., cannabis and cocaine). We feel that it is critical to draw a distinction between use and abuse of drugs and to do so from a multidimensional perspective that includes aspects of the stimulus (drug), organism (individual), response, and consequences. Our selective review of substance use and abuse among children and adolescents covers epidemiology (patterns and extent of drug use), etiology (what generates substance use), prevention (how to limit drug use), treatment (interventions with drug users), and consequences (effects and outcomes of youthful drug use).

Teenage drug use — a study of drug use patterns and attitudes of a subgroup of Sydney adolescents

Abstract: During October, 1986, a survey of the recreational drug using habits of 1,071 youths aged between 15 and 18 years was conducted in the streets of Sydney. To be included in the study, the youths had to have used at least one of the following drugs within the previous month: amphetamines, cocaine, hallucinogens, designer drugs, tranquillisers, barbiturates, opioids or inhalants. This paper reports upon the drug use behaviours, intentions and attitudes of these odolescents. Analyses indicated that clear subgroups of drug users exist: stimulant users, sedative users and opioid users. Furthermore, a concern with “controlled” drug use was evident amongst the sampled youths.

Consequences of Teenage Drug Use:

Despite the fairly well-established literature on theories and empirical studies to predict the initiation of teenage drug using behaviors, very little theory development, and even less research, has been directed toward understanding the adult consequences and outcomes of adolescent drug use. This paucity of well-articulated theories, lack of theoretical development, and few empirical analyses is addressed in this paper. Various theories and mechanisms available to explain the impact of drug use on aspects of the individual and society are reviewed. Although several theories touch on the notion of drug use consequences, for most of them, their explicit aim is to determine the antecedents of drug use. Several areas are discussed including the type of consequences, methodological concerns, currently available theoretical frameworks, presentation of a new theory to explain consequences of teenage drug use, and a selected review of empirical studies on drug use consequences. Emprical research is reviewed in ...

Meta-Analysis of 143 Adolescent Drug Prevention Programs: Quantitative Outcome Results of Program Participants Compared to a Control or Comparison Group

Presented is a meta-analysis of the outcome results for 143 adolescent drug prevention programs to identify the most effective program modalities for reducing teenage drug use. Glass' et al. (1981) meta-analysis techniques provided a systematic approach for the accumulation, quantification and integration of the numerous research findings. Five major modalities were identified and their effect sizes computed for five distinctly different outcomes: Knowledge, Attitudes, Use, Skills and Behavior measures. The magnitude of the effect size was found dependent on the outcome measure employed and the rigor of the experimental design. These factors were controlled for through use of a standard regression analysis. Peer Programs were found to show a definite superiority for the magnitude of the effect size obtained on all outcome measures. On the ultimate criteria of drug use, Peer Programs were significantly different than the combined results of all the remaining programs (p < .0005). Peer Programs maintained high effect size for alcohol, soft drugs and hard drugs, as well as for cigarette use. Recommendations are made concerning the effectiveness of the underlying theoretical assumption for the different program modalities. Future programming implications are discussed as Peer Programs were identified as effective for the average school-based adolescent population, but the Alternatives programs were shown to be highly successful for the “at risk” adolescents such as drug abusers, juvenile delinquents or students having school problems.

Social learning and teenage drug use: An analysis of family dyads.

Social learning and teenage drug use: An analysis of family dyads.

Social learning and teenage drug use: an analysis of family dyads.

This analysis of drug use in family dyads draws upon data from a series of nationwide studies in which interviews were conducted separately with teenagers and with older members of their families, i.e., their mothers, fathers, and older siblings. The interview schedule for these studies examines each individual's personal experience with a broad range of psychoactive substances. Thus, to the extent that behavioral similarities do occur in family dyads, "same drug links" can be compared to "cross drug links," providing a basis for differentiating evidence of direct imitation from less specific patterns of behavioral similarity. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.

Social adaptation to first grade and teenage drug, alcohol and cigarette use.

Social adaptation to first grade and teenage drug, alcohol and cigarette use.

Mental health in first grade and teenage drug, alcohol, and cigarette use.

Abstract This paper reports on prospective studies of the effects of psychological and social variables measured in first grade on the use of various drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes by teenagers 10 years later. The population consisted of all of the 1966–1967 first graders of Woodlawn, a poor, black, Chicago neighborhood. In a 10-year follow-up, the population, which had been studied three times in first grade and once in third grade, was reassessed for family, psychological, and social data, in addition to drug, alcohol and cigarette use. The former Woodlawn first graders, now aged 16–17, used beer or wine, hard liquor, marijuana or hashish, and cigarettes with considerable frequency. Psychedelics, amphetamines, barbiturates, tranquilizers, opiates, cocaine, inhalants, and cough syrup or codeine were used with much lower frequency. Three separate kinds of characteristics observable in first grade were associated with drug use by adolescents ten years later. (1) Higher first-grade IQ test scores or school readiness test scores predicted more frequent drug use for both sexes. (2) Males used drugs and alcohol (not cigarettes) more often than females, and, antecedents of later drug use by males were more clear than those for females. (3) Those children whose first-grade teachers rated them as shy used drugs least often 10 years later; first graders rated as aggressive used drugs most often 10 years later; adapting first graders and those with learning problems only were found to be moderate drug, alcohol and cigarette users. These results were much more clear for males. Among females, higher levels of psychiatric symptoms in first grade predicted, to some extent, lower teenage drug use. Teenage antisocial behavior was an important mediator of teenage drug use for first-grade shy-aggressive males and somewhat less important for first-grade aggressive males.

Teenage Alcohol Use Among Hyperactive Children: A Five Year Follow-up Study

Examined teenage drug use among hyperactive children by comparing a group of 23 hyperactives (mean age at 1st assessment, 8.9 yrs) to a group of 22 children (mean age at 1st assessment, 9.1 yrs) having difficulty in school for reasons other than hyperactivity and who were matched for age, sex, and IQ. After a 5-yr follow-up period the hyperactives were found to drink alcohol more frequently, although there were no differences on measures of academic achievement and intellectual ability. Hyperactives as teenagers still showed evidence of hyperactivity and were rated as having more conduct problems by their parents. Those hyperactives who were treated with Ritalin were compared to those untreated, and even when good and poor responders were examined separately no beneficial effects of the drug on academic achievement, intellectual ability, or behavioral ratings were evident. Language: en

Religious Correlates of Teenage Drug Use

This paper analyzes the relationship of religiosity and patterns of drug use among students in the seventh through the twelfth grades. Data were collected in a statewide questionnaire survey of more than 30,000 students. Hypotheses regarding the constraining influence of religion on drug use patterns received mixed support. On the one hand religiosity as measured by affiliation and by parochial school attendance did not uniformly constrain drug use. For example, while Catholics and Protestants were relatively low in current use, Jewish teenagers had the highest rate with nonaffiliates the second highest. Extent of involvement in religion (as measured by frequency of attendance), on the other hand, did seem constraining since nonattenders were more than twice as likely to be drug users as were regular weekly attenders. Data on these teenagers' evaluation of drug information sources is also presented. Here it was found that drug users tend to trust traditional sources of Information less than do nonusers and trust those with personal drug experience more than do nonusers. All students, however, whether drug users or not, tended to value information from those presumed to have technical knowledge about drugs, i.e., physicians and medical school professors. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are also explored.

Teenage Drug Use: A Search for Causes and Consequences

Teenage Drug Use: A Search for Causes and Consequences