Is Parent-Adolescent Drug Talk Always Protective? Testing A New Scale of Drug Talk Styles in Relation to Adolescent Personal Norms, Parental Injunctive Norms, Substance Use Intentions, and Behaviors

Adolescent Substance Use and Individual Beliefs That Drug Use Is Wrong: A Statewide Epidemiological Study

OBJECTIVE

Informed by cognitive dissonance theory, the current study investigated the ability of youths' belief that drug use is wrong to predict likelihood of past year substance use abstinence as well as frequency of use at grades 8, 10, and 12.

METHOD

Study analyses were executed from a statewide epidemiological survey of more than 125,000 youth using multi-group Zero-Inflated Poisson regression modeling.

RESULTS

Personal belief that drug use is wrong demonstrated the largest magnitude of effect at each grade among the individual, family, and school-based factors under examination; this finding emerged with respect to predicting past year substance use abstinence as well as rates of substance use among individuals reporting past year use. Although differences across grades were evident for the magnitude of effect within various risk and protective factors, the rank ordering in magnitude of effect between factors was consistent across grades 8, 10, and 12.

CONCLUSION

Current results underscore the salience of youths' belief that drug use is wrong in explaining likelihood of past year substance use at multiple time points during adolescence.

Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10826084.2022.2034877 .

How Does Family Communication Relate to Adolescent Dating Violence and Externalizing Behaviors? The Role of Parent-Adolescent Risk Communication and Attitudes toward Violence in a Nicaraguan Sample

Family plays a critical role for adolescent socialization. Parents in particular can promote either adolescent prosocial or problem behaviors. The purpose of the present study is two-fold. The first is to investigate the main and interaction effects of family communication (i.e., verbal hostility and expressiveness) on adolescent risk behaviors (i.e., dating violence and externalizing behaviors). The second is to test whether family communication is indirectly associated with adolescent risk behaviors through parent-adolescent risk communication and adolescent attitudes toward violence. Nicaraguan 7^th and 8^th graders were recruited to participate in paper-pencil surveys (N = 1,651). Path analysis identified significant main effects of verbal hostility for adolescent dating violence and externalizing behaviors. Although expressiveness did not show a significant main effect, interaction effects with verbal hostility were identified for both dating violence and externalizing behaviors. When verbal hostility was low, expressiveness was negatively related to adolescent dating violence and externalizing behaviors whereas when verbal hostility was high, expressiveness was positively associated with these behaviors. Significant indirect effects were detected only via adolescent attitudes toward violence. Prevention efforts that promote positive family environments and especially that eliminate verbal hostility are suggested.

Investigation of college student smoking perceptions, behaviors and communication about smoking with smoking friends and family

Purpose

Communication plays an important role in health decisions and behaviors. Friends and family exert influence through communication and, when considering smoking, this is particularly salient among those friends and family who smoke. Guided by primary socialization theory and integrated behavioral model, the present study examined the effects of having smoking friends and family on smoking beliefs (e.g. negative consequences, positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement), cultural normative beliefs, pro-smoking injunctive norms, smoking intentions and recent smoking behaviors.

Design/methodology/approach

Cross-sectional online survey data were collected from college students (N = 227). Multivariate analysis of covariance and path analysis were performed.

Findings

College students who reported having smoking friends were more likely to report higher levels of positive reinforcement, cultural normative beliefs, pro-smoking injunctive norms, positive attitudes, smoking intentions and recent smoking behaviors than those without smoking friends. Frequent communication with smoking friends was significantly related to cultural normative beliefs, pro-smoking injunctive norms, positive attitudes and smoking intentions. The analysis, however, did not yield statistical support for the associations between frequent communication with smoking family and smoking perceptions, norms and behaviors.

Originality/value

The present study highlights the vital roles of friends' influence for college students' smoking behaviors. Communication-based intervention can help better equip college students with communication strategies that prevent tobacco use by promoting more effective conversations with friends.

Communication about Suicide, Perceived Social Support, and Suicidal Intention in Korean Adults

The present study investigates indirect effects of communication about suicide in interpersonal relationships and patient-provider relationships on suicidal intention via attitude, descriptive norm, injunctive norm, and self-efficacy in committing suicide among Korean adults, using longitudinal survey data. Moderation effects of perceived social support are also tested. As a result of path analysis (N = 984), communication about suicide with family, friends, and coworkers is significantly related to pro-suicide descriptive norm and pro-suicide injunctive norm. Positive attitude toward suicide, pro-suicide injunctive norm, and high self-efficacy in committing suicide are significantly related to suicidal intention. Interpersonal communication is positively related to pro-suicide injunctive norm, which in turn links to suicidal intention. Communication about suicide with healthcare professionals, however, did not show significant direct and indirect effects. Moderation effects of perceived social support are detected between interpersonal communication and pro-suicide attitude and pro-suicide injunctive norm, as well as between patient-provider communication and pro-suicide attitude.

Narrative Engagement and Interpersonal Communication about Substance Use on Adolescent Substance Use Behaviors: A Case Study of keepin' it REAL

The present study examined direct and indirect effects of adolescent narrative engagement on substance use behaviors via refusal self-efficacy. This study also tested moderation effects of communication about substance use with parents, siblings, and friends on substance use behaviors. Students in 8^th grade (N = 225) participated in surveys at two different time points. Path analyses revealed a positive association between identification with main characters and refusal self-efficacy as well as negative associations between refusal self-efficacy and the past 30-days substance use. Communication with parents and friends significantly moderated the relationship between refusal self-efficacy and the past 30-days substance use.