"An Examination of Parent-child Relationships and Teen Substance Use" by Brianna Johnson

Date of Award

2011

Document Type

Honors Thesis

Department

Behavioral Sciences

First Advisor

Duane McBride

Second Advisor

Gary Hopkins

Abstract

What is the relationship between parent-child relationships and teen substance use? Our relationship with our parents can impact our lives for the better or the worse. To study this we analyzed a survey done by the Community that Cares. Alcohol use, marijuana use and tobacco use were determined by the respondent's self-reported substance use within the last within their lifetime on a 7 point Likert scale that ranges from 0 times to 40 times. Parental Relationships was measured by the respondents' feelings about how close they felt to their parents on a 4 point Likert scale ranging from no to yes. Family Conflict was measured by the respondent's answers to whether or not there were arguments and yelling occurring in the home on a 4 point Likert scale ranging from no to yes. This study surveyed 570 students ages 12-19 in grades 7 -9 in 2008 at Northwest elementary and high schools. The hypothesis that high-quality parent-child relationships are inversely correlated with teen substance use was supported as was the hypothesis that poor parent-child relationships would be positively correlated with substance use.

Subject Area

Parent and child, Substance abuse, Teenagers--Substance use

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

DOI

https://dx.doi.org/10.32597/honors/16/

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