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Abstract
Background: There is a need to understand resiliency factors which can be used to inform and design interventions to prevent externalizing problems, substance use, and depressive symptoms among American Indian (AI) youth. Objectives: The present study examined the role of self-efficacy in externalizing problems, alcohol use, and depressive symptoms among AI youth from the North American plains. Methods: Participants for this study included 146 (53 boys and 93 girls) adolescents, with an age range of 13–18 (M = 14.5) years of age. Results: High self-efficacy for resisting negative peer influences predicted both lower rates of alcohol use and fewer externalizing behaviors. Furthermore, higher levels of both academic and social self-efficacy predicted fewer depressive symptoms. The hypothesis that academic self-efficacy would predict depressive symptoms was not supported. Conclusion: As expected, the best-fitting path model showed self-efficacy for resisting negative peer influences predicting both alcohol use and externalizing problems, and social self-efficacy (as well as being female) predicting depressive symptoms among AI youth. Therefore, this study supports the importance of self-efficacy beliefs for alcohol use and externalizing problems, as well as depressive symptoms, among AI youth.