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ABSTRACT
Background: Although the relation between impulsive-irresponsible psychopathic traits and substance use is well-documented, the path to developing substance use problems is less understood in adolescents with these characteristics. Objectives: To examine the associations between psychopathy, anxiety, and substance use motives and a mechanism by which anxiety and alcohol and marijuana coping motives mediate the relation between psychopathic traits and substance use-related problems. Methods: A sample of 185 at-risk adolescent males from a residential military-style program reporting past alcohol or marijuana use (M age = 16.74) participated in the study. Results: Impulsive-Irresponsible psychopathic traits were uniquely and incrementally predictive of alcohol and marijuana use-related problems and anxiety. Anxiety and coping motives appeared to partially explain the association between impulsivity-irresponsibility and substance use-related problems. Conclusions/Importance: Findings suggest that youth expressing impulsive-irresponsible psychopathic traits may engage in problematic substance use at least partly as a function of heightened anxiety and a subsequent desire to alleviate distress by using alcohol or marijuana to cope.
Acknowledgment
We would like to thank Corey Brawner for his assistance with this article.
Declaration of interest
The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.
Notes
1 Because two CRAFFT items contained similar content as MMM and DMQ-R coping motive items (i.e., using drugs to relax, using drugs to forget), these items were excluded from CRAFFT total scores. The same pattern of results as shown in was found. The serial-mediation analyses outlined in also remain unchanged. Exploratory zero-order correlations between SU-related problems and motives were calculated to further examine the overlap between the two constructs. For alcohol use, the relation with coping motives was strong, r=.52, p <.001, whereas the relations with the other motives were low to moderate, rs between.17 and.39, p <.03. Relations between marijuana use and all motives were moderate, rs between.26 and.38, p ≤.001, except conformity motives, r =.02, p =.81.
2 AMOS was used to examine a serial-mediation model where alcohol and marijuana coping and problem use were indicators of latent SU coping and problem use variables, respectively. Due to poor model fit, RMSEA =.18, TLI =.52, CFI =.84, alcohol and marijuana models were analyzed individually with PROCESS.
3 A competing moderation model was tested (i.e., the effect of II on SU-related problems moderated by anxiety and coping). II did not interact with either factor to predict alcohol or marijuana use-related problems.