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Addiction
Research
Association between adolescent tobacco, alcohol and illicit drug use and individual and environmental resilience protective factors
  1. Rebecca Kate Hodder1,2,3,4,
  2. Megan Freund2,3,4,
  3. Jenny Bowman3,5,
  4. Luke Wolfenden1,2,3,4,
  5. Karen Gillham1,3,
  6. Julia Dray1,3,5,
  7. John Wiggers1,2,3,4
  1. 1Hunter New England Population Health, Wallsend, New South Wales, Australia
  2. 2School of Medicine and Public Health, The University of Newcastle, University Drive, Callaghan, New South Wales, Australia
  3. 3Hunter Medical Research Institute, New Lambton, New South Wales, Australia
  4. 4Priority Research Centre Health Behaviour, The University of Newcastle, University Drive, Callaghan, New South Wales, Australia
  5. 5School of Psychology, The University of Newcastle, University Drive, Callaghan, New South Wales, Australia
  1. Correspondence to Rebecca Kate Hodder; Rebecca.hodder{at}hnehealth.nsw.gov.au

Abstract

Objectives Research suggests that individual and environmental resilience protective factors may be associated with adolescent substance use; however, the associations between a broad range of such factors and use of various types of substances have not been examined. The study aimed to determine the association between a comprehensive range of adolescent individual and environmental resilience protective factors and measures of tobacco, alcohol and illicit substance use.

Design Cross-sectional study.

Setting 32 Australian secondary schools.

Participants Grade 7–10 students (aged 11–17 years).

Measures Data regarding 14 student individual and environmental resilience protective factors and seven substance use measures (tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, other illicit drug use) were obtained via an online self-report survey. Adjusted multivariate logistic regression analyses examined the association between all student resilience protective factors and seven substance use measures.

Results Inverse univariate associations were found for 94 of 98 relationships examined (n=10 092). Multivariate analyses found: consistent inverse associations between 2 of 14 protective factors and all substance use measures (‘goals and aspirations’, ‘prosocial peers’); inverse associations between 4 protective factors with multiple substance use measures (‘home support’ (5 of 7), ‘school support’ (3 of 7), ‘self-awareness’ (2 of 7), ‘community meaningful participation’ (2 of 7)); positive associations between 2 resilience protective factors with multiple measures of substance use (‘community support’ (3 of 7), ‘peer caring relationships’ (5 of 7)) and 6 protective factors not to be associated with any substance use measure.

Conclusions Despite individual relationships between the majority of resilience protective factors and substance use types, the protective benefit of such factors for adolescent substance use was limited to only a small number of such factors when considered collectively. Such results suggest that interventions seeking to reduce adolescent substance use may need to target specific protective factors to address specific types of substance use.

Trial registration number ACTRN12611000606987, Results.

  • PREVENTIVE MEDICINE
  • PUBLIC HEALTH

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2016-012688

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors RKH contributed to the design of the data collection tools, monitored the data collection, led conception of the paper, cleaned and analysed the data, drafted and revised the paper. MF, JB and JW contributed to the design of the data collection tools and conception of the paper, monitored the data collection, provided critical revision and approved the final version of the paper. LW, KG and JD contributed to the critical revision of the manuscript and approved the final manuscript. CL provided statistical advice.

    • Funding This work was supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (grant number NHMRC #1016650) and the nib Foundation.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Ethics approval Human Research Ethics Committee, Hunter New England Health (Ref:09/11/18/4.01) and Human Research Ethics Committee, University of Newcastle (Ref:H-2010-0029).

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data sharing statement Requests for additional unpublished data should be forwarded to rebecca.hodder@hnehealth.nsw.gov.au