The Role of Relational Harmony in the Use of Drug-Refusal Strategies of Rural Native Hawaiian Youths

ABSTRACT

This study examined the role of maintaining relational harmony among family members in the use of drug-refusal strategies for rural Hawaiian youth. Youth focus groups were conducted to validate refusal strategies used in realistic, hypothetical drug-related problem situations. The findings suggested gender-specific motivations for maintaining relational harmony among family members when faced with drug offers from them. Specifically, boys described instrumental concerns when using refusal strategies (i.e., not wanting to get into trouble), while girls described holistic relational concerns (i.e., not wanting family members to be upset with each other). Implications for prevention and social work practice are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Culturally grounded prevention
• drugs
• family
• native Hawaiian
• youth

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the following individuals for their assistance with data collection for this study: Ay-Laina Dinson, Jessica Mabanag, Nicholas Maez, Latoya L. McClain, and Matt Yamashita.

Funding

This study was supported by funding from the National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Drug Abuse (R34 DA031306), with supplemental funding from the Trustees’ Scholarly Endeavors Program, Hawai‘i Pacific University, and was completed for partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Master in Social Work program at Hawai‘i Pacific University.

Notes

1. In NVivo, “coverage” refers to the amount of text in a transcript that is devoted to a specific code.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by funding from the National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Drug Abuse (R34 DA031306), with supplemental funding from the Trustees’ Scholarly Endeavors Program, Hawai‘i Pacific University, and was completed for partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Master in Social Work program at Hawai‘i Pacific University.