Family and parenting characteristics associated with marijuana use by Chilean adolescents

Abstract

Objective

Family involvement and several characteristics of parenting have been suggested to be protective factors for adolescent substance use. Some parenting behaviors may have stronger relationships with adolescent behavior while others may have associations with undesirable behavior among youth. Although it is generally acknowledged that families play an important role in the lives of Chilean adolescents, scant research exists on how different family and parenting factors may be associated with marijuana use and related problems in this population which has one of the highest rates of drug use in Latin America.

Methods

Using logistic regression and negative binomial regression, we examined whether a large number of family and parenting variables were associated with the possibility of Chilean adolescents ever using marijuana, and with marijuana-related problems. Analyses controlled for a number of demographic and peer-related variables.

Results

Controlling for other parenting and family variables, adolescent reports of parental marijuana use showed a significant and positive association with adolescent marijuana use. The multivariate models also revealed that harsh parenting by fathers was the only family variable associated with the number of marijuana-related problems youth experienced.

Conclusion

Of all the family and parenting variables studied, perceptions of parental use of marijuana and harsh parenting by fathers were predictors for marijuana use, and the experience of marijuana-related problems. Prevention interventions need to continue emphasizing the critical socializing role that parental behavior plays in their children’s development and potential use of marijuana.

Keywords:

• parenting
• families
• adolescent
• drugs
• marijuana use
• Chile

Acknowledgments

We are extremely grateful to the adolescents of the Santiago Longitudinal Study and their families for taking the time to participate in this study. This research was funded by NIDA Grant # RO1 DA021181 and the Curtis Research and Training Center at the University of Michigan School of Social Work.

Disclosure

The authors disclose no conflicts of interest.

Notes

a As a specification test of our models, we conducted additional analyses to examine if any one variable was responsible for the loss of significance by the family and parenting variables when in the multivariate models. To do this, we built the multivariate models by adding predictor variables one at a time and examining how the significance levels were changing. Results of these analyses indicate that no single parenting variable was responsible for the loss of significance of the parenting and family variables. Rather, it was the combination of the parenting and family variables and the variable measuring how many peers use marijuana that resulted in the loss of significance.