Illegal Drug Use, Depressive Symptoms, and General Health: Exploring Co-occurrence across 11 Years in a National Sample

ABSTRACT

The co-occurrence of illegal drug use, symptoms of depression, and a lower perception of general health among adolescents continues to be of substantive interest for researchers and the general public alike. Research on this topic, however, remains relatively stagnant, focusing on narrow developmental periods and each association independently, with limited consideration for the existence of a nexus between the three constructs as individuals age. Considering these limitations, the current study examines the longitudinal progression, from adolescence to early adulthood, of illegal drug use, symptoms of depression, and a lower perception of general health. The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97; N = 8,984), measures over an eleven-year data collection period, and between-and within-individual analytical strategies were used to evaluate the nexus between the constructs. The findings suggested that illegal drug use, depressive symptoms, and general health at previous time periods directly and indirectly predicted illegal drug use, depressive symptoms, and general health at subsequent time periods. Moreover, the within-individual change in illegal drug use was associated with the change in depressive symptoms, and the change in depressive symptoms was associated with the change in general health. Practitioners should consider this co-occurrence when treating symptoms related to illegal drug use, symptoms of depression, and physical health.

Keywords:

• Depressive Symptoms
• Perception of Health
• Illegal drug use

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

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Notes

1. The interviews completed between Round 4 and Round 14 were selected because the measure of depressive symptoms was first administered during the Round 4 interview.

2. A comprehensive missing case analysis was conducted to evaluate if the data was missing completely at random, missing at random, or missing not at random, as well as evaluate if substantive differences existed between the missing and non-missing cases. The results of the evaluation suggested that the data was missing at random and negligible differences existed between the missing and non-missing cases (White and Carlin 2010). The results of the missing case analysis are available upon request. The data was imputed using the MICE (Version: 3.11.0) package in R and 250 iterations with predictive mean matching used to impute the continuous constructs and logistic regression used to impute the dichotomous constructs (Buuren and Groothuis-Oudshoorn 2010).

3. Illicit drug use was specified as ordered in the Lavaan code for the analysis.

4. Although these concerns are justified by statements made by the NLSY97 research team, Appendix B provides a replication of the models presented in the primary text using a sample weight for 2000 to 2010 created on the designated NLSY97 website. The results of the weighted replications are highly similar to the findings presented in the main text.

5. The age of the participants at each year was $\bar{X}$ = 17.35 (2000; Min, Max = 15, 21), $\bar{X}$ = 18.35 (2001; Min, Max = 16, 22), $\bar{X}$ = 19.35 (2002; Min, Max = 17, 23), $\bar{X}$ = 20.35 (2003; Min, Max = 18, 24), $\bar{X}$ = 21.35 (2004; Min, Max = 19, 25), $\bar{X}$ = 22.35 (2005; Min, Max = 20, 26), $\bar{X}$ = 23.35 (2006; Min, Max = 21, 27), $\bar{X}$ = 24.35 (2007; Min, Max = 22, 28), $\bar{X}$ = 25.35 (2008; Min, Max = 23, 29), $\bar{X}$ = 26.35 (2009; Min, Max = 24, 30), and $\bar{X}$ = 27.35 (2010; Min, Max = 25, 31). Age at each year was determined by the age of the respondents at the first NLSY97 interview in 1997.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.