Substance Use Among Eighth-Grade Students Who Take Care of Themselves After School

• NCJ Number: 119921
• Journal: Pediatrics Volume: 84 Issue: 3 Dated: (September 1989) Pages: 556-566
• Author(s): J L Richardson; K Dwyer; K McGuigan; W B Hansen; C Dent; C A Johnson; S Y Sussman; B Brannon; B Flay
• Date Published: 1989
• Length: 11 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Data collected from 4932 eighth-grade students and 2185 parents indicated that self-care after school is an important risk factor for alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana use.

Abstract

Those students -- at all levels of sociodemographic status, extracurricular activities, sources of social influence, and stress -- who took care of themselves for 11-plus hours per week were twice as susceptible to substance use as those who did not take care of themselves at all. Ninety percent of the 186 stratified were significant, and those that were not, were in the expected direction. Risk-taking, having friends who smoke, and being offered cigarettes -- manifestations of a desire to show maturity and independence -- may be factors in the relationship between self-care and substance use. The research suggests there may be more than one mechanism for the associated increase in substance use and that self-care may result in more unnoticed solitary trials of substances. 2 figures, 3 tables, 26 references. (Author abstract modified)