Original article
Social skills and attitudes associated with substance use behaviors among young adolescents

https://doi.org/10.1016/S1054-139X(01)00405-0Get rights and content

Abstract

Purpose: To examine how adolescents’ attitudes and social skills affect current substance use and intentions to use substances in the future.

Methods: An anonymous questionnaire was administered to 2646 seventh graders in their classrooms. The questionnaire was developed to measure the frequency of tobacco, alcohol, and other substance use, anticipated use, positive attitudes toward drug use, self-efficacy to say “no,” decision-making skills, advertising-viewing skills, anxiety-reducing skills, communication skills, drug-resistance skills, perception of peer substance use, and weapon-carrying behavior. Ethnicity classified respondents as “white” or “students of color” and family structure indicated one vs. two-parent families. Data were analyzed with Spearman’s r, analysis of variance, and multiple linear regression.

Results: Forty-one percent of students were minority, 50.6% female, over 90% were either 12- or 13-year-olds, and 69.9% lived in two-parent families. A multiple linear regression model demonstrated that self-efficacy to say “no, positive attitudes toward drug use, perception of peer substance use, male gender, weapon-carrying, and fighting accounted for 51% of the variation in the current use multiple substance scale. Anticipated substance use during the subsequent year was significantly associated with current substance use, positive attitudes toward drug use, self-efficacy to say ”no, drug-resistance skills, weapon-carrying, and fighting behavior. This model accounted for 73.9% of the variance in anticipated substance use.

Conclusions: In today’s world, where drug use is common, building adolescents’ drug-resistance skills and self-efficacy, while enhancing decision-making capacity, may reduce their use of illegal substances.

Section snippets

Study design

The study protocol was approved by the Internal Review Board at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. Verbal consent was obtained from each student. Written informed consent was not obtained from a parent or guardian because this study was part of an evaluation of a new curriculum in the middle schools. An anonymous questionnaire was administered to 2646 seventh grade students in classrooms by investigators before implementing the Life Skills Training curriculum in 1999. All enrolled

Descriptive statistics

Forty-one percent were students of color and 50.6%, female. The majority ranged in age from 12 to 13 years, and 69.9% lived in two-parent families. The frequency of substance use in the previous 30 days (ranging from 1 = ”never“ to 7 = ”more than once a day“) indicated that 14.1% used cigarettes at least once, 18.5% used alcohol at least once, 5% smoked marijuana at least once, 6.5% used inhalants at least once, and 0.6% used cocaine or other ”hard drugs“ at least once. For anticipated use in

Discussion

The 1998 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse found that for youth aged 12–13 years, 9.7% of students reported cigarette use in the past 30 days [17]. Our study found a much higher rate (14.1%) of cigarette use. However, our finding, that about 19% of seventh graders used alcohol in the past month, is similar to the findings from the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse. This survey also indicated that 12–13 year olds had a 3% lifetime prevalence of marijuana use and inhalant use, with a

Conclusions

In today’s world where social acceptance of drug use is common, teaching adolescents drug-resistance skills, emphasizing self-efficacy to say “no,” and enhancing their critical decision-making skills might successfully reduce the level of illegal substance use by adolescents. Because younger adolescents are already beginning to use substances, prevention needs to occur early and focus on enhancing skills that will directly affect behavior.

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  • Cited by (0)

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