Substance misuse and its risk perception in European teenagers

Abstract

This paper aims to reveal the relations of risk behavior and its contextual factors, including the perception of risks that substance use may bring. Statistical analysis is based on the data from the European School Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD) [2007. The 2007 ESPAD Report. Stockholm: The Swedish Council for Information on Alcohol and Other Drugs]. It uses individual data for the 71,287 European students and identifies key behavioral patterns typical for the perception of the risk behavior among European students and the real prevalence of this risk behavior. This study provides support for understanding of adolescent substance use through the analysis of teenagers' behavior and perception applying also a new method of sociomapping. Sociomapping enables to document the scientific facts by an easy, demonstrative manner, which is comprehensible for the students of elementary schools, where the prevention of health risk behavior is essential. The conclusion of the paper draws implications for the preventive practice.

Keywords:

• adolescents
• child health
• health
• methods
• post-socialism

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the QED GROUP for the help with sociomapping procedures and outputs and Dr Ladislav Csémy for the available data.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic under grant ‘The analysis of the relation of youth health risk behavior and sociogeographical determinants of the environment’ [number NT 12118-5/2011].