«For racial minority adolescents,
cigarette and alcohol
use linked to suicidality: Study reveals pervasive
lifetime substance
use among US adolescents in ninth to 12th grades, especially for alcohol,
cigarettes, and marijuana.»
Assessments conducted at earlier phases are specified in previous articles.7, 8 At the 15 - year follow - up assessment, adolescents completed interviews that measured whether they had been adjudicated a person in need of supervision (PINS) resulting from incorrigible behavior such as recurrent truancy or destroying parents» property; their frequency of running away from home; and the number of times they had been stopped by the police, arrested, convicted of a crime or of probation violations, and sent to youth correctional facilities.14 They also reported on their disruptive behavior in school; number of school suspensions; delinquent and aggressive behavior outside school; experience of sexual intercourse; rates of pregnancy;
lifetime number of sexual partners; and frequency of
using cigarettes, alcohol, and illegal drugs during the 6 - month period prior to the 15 - year interview.15
General alcohol
use (
lifetime and current drinking), social factors (peer susceptibility, social norms, estimated descriptive norm), alcohol - related cognitions (drinking motives, drink refusal self - efficacy, alcohol expectancies) and
use of other (psychotropic) substances including
cigarettes, marijuana and other drugs.
No significant differences between participants who completed all interviews and those not present for at least one assessment were found for minority status (minority vs. majority), Χ 2 [1, N = 386] = 0.72, p = 0.40, φ = 0.04), gender, Χ 2 [1, N = 387] = 1.26, p = 0.26, φ = 0.06, age, F [1, 386] = 0.04, p = 0.84, d = 0.03, parental education (some high school or high school graduate, technical school or some college, college degree or beyond), Χ 2 [2, N = 387] = 1.19, p = 0.55, φ = 0.05, marital status (caregiver married vs. not married), Χ 2 [1, N = 387] = 2.48, p = 0.12, φ = 0.08, family income, F [1, 361] = 1.29, p = 0.26, d = 0.18,
lifetime alcohol, Χ 2 [1, N = 387] = 1.82, p = 0.18, φ = 0.07 or
cigarette use Χ 2 [1, N = 387] = 0.35, p = 0.55, φ = 0.03, internalizing problems, F [1, 386] = 2.67, p = 0.10, d = 0.24, or externalizing problems, F [1, 386] = 3.74, p = 0.05, d = 0.27.