Positive Psychological Characteristics and Substance Use in First Nation Adolescents

Abstract

BackgroundNorth American Indigenous (NAI) adolescents experience disproportionate harm related to substance use compared to non-Indigenous adolescents. Strengths-based approaches to substance use prevention and treatment are consistent with Indigenous conceptualizations of health, which tend to be holistic and incorporate more spirituality and community than mainstream Western conceptualizations. Despite this, little is known about how positive psychological characteristics that might confer protection relate to substance use among NAI adolescents. Thus, the present study aims to examine the relations among life satisfaction, subjective happiness, self-compassion, and cigarette, marijuana, alcohol, and other drug use. MethodsParticipants were 106 reserve-dwelling First Nation adolescents located in Eastern Canada (M_age= 14.6 years, 50.0% female) who completed a paper-and-pencil survey regarding their substance use and psychological characteristics for a larger community-based participatory research project. ResultsGreater life satisfaction was significantly associated with decreased odds of lifetime (OR = 0.88, 95%CI [0.81, 0.96]) and current cigarette smoking (OR = 0.90, 95%CI [0.82, 0.99]). Greater subjective happiness was significantly associated with decreased odds of current marijuana use (OR = 0.83, 95%CI [0.71, 0.97]). Although significantly correlated with lower lifetime use of other drugs, self-compassion was not significantly associated with lifetime or current odds of substance use after controlling for age, gender, and other positive characteristics. DiscussionThis is one of the first studies to evaluate positive characteristics and substance use in NAI adolescents. Results point to positive characteristics that may be useful in substance use prevention and suggest the need for further research to further elucidate these associations.

Keywords:

• Indigenous
• adolescent
• substance use
• life satisfaction
• subjective happiness
• self-compassion

Declaration of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.

Notes

1 Of note, this sample size represents approximately one third of adolescents within this age range from this cultural group living on-reserve, based on conservative estimates from 2016 Canadian census data Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada (2016, Last Update). First Nation Profiles. https://fnp-ppn.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/fnp/Main/index.aspx?lang=eng

2 We conducted additional exploratory analyses in which each positive psychological characteristic that was significantly associated with substance use outcomes was entered into separate models, controlling for age and gender. In these models, subjective happiness was only significantly related to odds of past 30-day marijuana use (OR = 0.84, p = .009, 95%CI [0.73, 0.96]). Self-compassion was only significantly related to odds of lifetime use of other drugs (OR = 0.12, p = .009, 95%CI [0.03, 0.59]). Satisfaction with life was significantly related to odds of lifetime cigarette smoking (OR = 0.89, p < .001, 95%CI [0.83, 0.95]), lifetime marijuana use (OR = 0.91, p = .02, 95%CI [0.84, 0.99]), lifetime use of other drugs (OR = 0.91, p = .04, 95%CI [0.84, 0.99]), and past 30-day cigarette smoking (OR = 0.91, p = .02, 95%CI [0.85, 0.99]).

3 We dichotomized past three-month frequency of alcohol use and drinking to intoxication to allow for consistency in analyses across outcome variables. However, we also examined models in which past three-month frequency of alcohol use and of drinking to intoxication remained continuous and our patterns of results remained the same. Specifically, none of the positive characteristics emerged as significant predictors of past three-month alcohol use (bs = -.01 to -.18, ps = .10 to .49) or of past three-month drinking to intoxication (bs = -.02 to -.27, ps = .14 to .44).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse grant K08DA029094 to the second author (NS).