Stressed kids more likely to substance abuse

Wednesday, 20 August 2003 12:00 AM

Teens who are highly stressed, frequently bored or have substantial amounts of spending money are significantly more likely to smoke, drink, get drunk and use illegal drugs, according to the eighth National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance Abuse.

But the potentially catastrophic repercussions of this common combination can be avoided through parental engagement, according to the chairman of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, where the research was carried out.

Joseph Califano Jr explains: "Parents must be sensitive to the stress in their children's lives, understand why they are bored and limit their spending money."

"Parent Power is the most underutilised weapon in efforts to curb teen substance abuse."

After interviewing at home by telephone 1,987 teens aged 12 to 17, and 504 parents the researchers found that high stress teens are twice as likely as those under low stress to smoke, drink, get drunk and use illegal drugs.

Bored teens are 50% more likely to engage in these behaviours than their non-bored peers, while teens with more than $25 (about £15.60) per week in spending money are nearly twice as likely to smoke, drink and use illegal drugs, and more than twice as likely to get drunk.

For the first time in the eight years of the annual survey, concern about academic and social pressures have caught up with worries about drugs, a finding which will reinforce the position of those in the UK who feel young people are put under too much pressure at school with public exams over successive years.

Another revelation that may affect education policy is the finding that teens in schools of more than 1200 students are twice as likely as teens at schools with less than 800 students to be at high risk of substance abuse, (25% as opposed to 12%).

The study found that the expectation of parents also correlated with the likelihood of substance abuse, with those teens whose parents believe that future drug use is "very likely" over three times more likely to become substance abusers than teens whose parents say future drug use is "not likely at all."

Parents on the whole are more pessimistic than their children on the likelihood substance abuse avoidance, and Mr Califano observes that many parents feel powerless to intervene in potential problems areas such as drugs in school.

But he urges: "How parents act, how much pressure they put on school administrators to get drugs out of their teens' schools, their attitudes about drugs, and how engaged they are in their children's lives will have enormous influence over their teens' substance use".

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