Adolescent Use (adolescent + use)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Cultural Perspectives Concerning Adolescent Use of Tobacco and Alcohol in the Appalachian Mountain Region

THE JOURNAL OF RURAL HEALTH, Issue 1 2008
Michael G. Meyer MA
ABSTRACT:,Context:Appalachia has high rates of tobacco use and related health problems, and despite significant impediments to alcohol use, alcohol abuse is common. Adolescents are exposed to sophisticated tobacco and alcohol advertising. Prevention messages, therefore, should reflect research concerning culturally influenced attitudes toward tobacco and alcohol use. Methods: With 4 grants from the National Institutes of Health, 34 focus groups occurred between 1999 and 2003 in 17 rural Appalachian jurisdictions in 7 states. These jurisdictions ranged between 4 and 8 on the Rural-Urban Continuum Codes of the Economic Research Service of the US Department of Agriculture. Of the focus groups, 25 sought the perspectives of women in Appalachia, and 9, opinions of adolescents. Findings: The family represented the key context where residents of Appalachia learn about tobacco and alcohol use. Experimentation with tobacco and alcohol frequently commenced by early adolescence and initially occurred in the context of the family home. Reasons to abstain from tobacco and alcohol included a variety of reasons related to family circumstances. Adults generally displayed a greater degree of tolerance for adolescent alcohol use than tobacco use. Tobacco growing represents an economic mainstay in many communities, a fact that contributes to the acceptance of its use, and many coal miners use smokeless tobacco since they cannot light up in the mines. The production and distribution of homemade alcohol was not a significant issue in alcohol use in the mountains even though it appeared not to have entirely disappeared. Conclusions: Though cultural factors support tobacco and alcohol use in Appalachia, risk awareness is common. Messages tailored to cultural themes may decrease prevalence. [source]


Maternal Socialization of Positive Affect: The Impact of Invalidation on Adolescent Emotion Regulation and Depressive Symptomatology

CHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 5 2008
Marie B. H. Yap
This study examined the relations among maternal socialization of positive affect (PA), adolescent emotion regulation (ER), and adolescent depressive symptoms. Two hundred early adolescents, 11,13 years old, provided self-reports of ER strategies and depressive symptomatology; their mothers provided self-reports of socialization responses to adolescent PA. One hundred and sixty-three mother,adolescent dyads participated in 2 interaction tasks. Adolescents whose mothers responded in an invalidating or "dampening" manner toward their PA displayed more emotionally dysregulated behaviors and reported using maladaptive ER strategies more frequently. Adolescents whose mothers dampened their PA more frequently during mother,adolescent interactions, and girls whose mothers reported invalidating their PA, reported more depressive symptoms. Adolescent use of maladaptive ER strategies mediated the association between maternal invalidation of PA and early adolescents' concurrent depressive symptoms. [source]


Cultural Continuity Amid Social Change: Adolescents' Use of Free Time in India

NEW DIRECTIONS FOR CHILD & ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT, Issue 99 2003
Suman Verma
Indian adolescents' use of free time, influenced by both tradition and modernization, varies according to class, setting (urban versus rural), and gender. [source]


Are adolescents who moderate their cannabis use at lower risk of later regular and dependent cannabis use?

ADDICTION, Issue 5 2009
Wendy Swift
ABSTRACT Aims To examine whether moderation of cannabis use among adolescent cannabis users is associated with reductions in cannabis use frequency and risk of dependence in young adulthood. Design Ten-year representative cohort study with six surveys in adolescence (mean age 14.9,17.4 years) and two in young adulthood (mean age 20.7 and 24.1 years). Participants Inception cohort of 1943 Victorian secondary school students (96% response rate), with 1520 (78% of adolescent participants) interviewed in the final wave. Measurements Participants were classified into six groups according to the maximum level of adolescent use and the extent of subsequent moderation in such use: non-users, occasional to abstinence, occasional persisting, weekly to abstinence, weekly to occasional and weekly persisting. Outcome measures were weekly+ cannabis use and DSM-IV cannabis dependence at 20 and 24 years. Findings Thirty-one per cent reported cannabis use during adolescence. Most adolescent users had moderated their use: from occasional to abstinence (71% of occasional users), weekly to abstinence or weekly to occasional (28% and 48% of weekly+ users, respectively). By age 24, both occasional use groups were at similar, elevated risk of regular and dependent cannabis use compared to non-users. Weekly+ adolescent users were at greatest risk of these outcomes, although the weekly to abstinence group exhibited lower risk than those in the weekly persisting and weekly to occasional groups, who were at similar risk. Conclusions While many young people have dynamic cannabis use patterns, a pattern of moderating adolescent cannabis use was associated with less risk of later problematic use than among those persisting, but risks were still elevated substantially compared with never-users. [source]


Alcohol Use Among Rural Middle School Students: Adolescents, Parents, Teachers, and Community Leaders' Perceptions*

JOURNAL OF SCHOOL HEALTH, Issue 2 2009
Laura DeHaan PhD
ABSTRACT BACKGROUND:, Although rural adolescents use of alcohol is at some of the highest rates nationally, rural adolescent alcohol use has not been studied extensively. This study examines how community attitudes and behaviors are related to adolescent drinking in rural environments. METHODS:, Data were gathered in 22 rural communities in the Upper Midwest (North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and Wyoming). Surveys were collected from 1424 rural sixth- to eighth-grade adolescents and 790 adults, including parents, teachers, and community leaders. Census data were also collected. RESULTS:, Drinkers differed from nondrinkers by the following factors: higher perceptions of peer, parental, and overall community drinking, as well as lower levels of parental closeness and religiosity. Factors distinguishing binge and nonbinge drinkers were increased drinking to reduce stress, drinking to fit in, perceptions of peer drinking, and perceived lack of alternatives to drinking. Parents were significantly less likely to perceive adolescent alcohol use as a problem than other community adults; school officials were most likely to perceive it as a problem. Parental perceptions were also the least correlated to actual adolescent use, while adolescent perceptions were the most highly correlated. CONCLUSIONS:, Community fac tors such as overall prevalence of drinking, community support, and controls against drinking are important predictors of reported use in early adolescence. School officials were more likely to view adolescent alcohol use as a problem than were parents. School officials' perceptions of adolescent use were also more related to actual adolescent use than were parental perceptions of adolescent use. [source]