NCJ Number
161002
Journal
Journal of Child and Adolescent Substance Abuse Volume: 4 Issue: 4 Dated: (1995) Pages: 1-23
Date Published
1995
Length
23 pages
Annotation
Substance use histories up to 16 years of age were obtained for 318 black males and 322 black females on whom systematic prospective data were available from the National Collaborative Perinatal Study.
Abstract
No single early life variable predicted drug and alcohol use for either males or females. A clearer picture of risk factors for early involvement in drug use appeared among females than among males, including childhood psychopathology, lower intellectual level, and poorer academic performance. The fact that no predictor was replicated across gender suggested that some of the "technically significant" correlations may have occurred by chance and would not be replicated with another sample. On the other hand, the fact that six predictors for females and three predictors for males were relevant to both the Drug Severity Index score and the alcohol to intoxication score could be considered as a type of replication and thus lend some confidence to study findings. For both males and females, several risk factors appeared to be related to problems or physical- mental handicaps of other family members or to the subject's physical handicaps. For males, the finding that mothers were employed for a longer period of time suggested that less adequate attention from mother was more likely a risk factor than poverty or lack of material welfare. In the case of males, one risk factor involved more negative ratings by the psychologist, the mother's handling of the subject as an infant. 32 references and 5 tables