Hispanic Adolescents with Severe Substance Abuse Problems: Parental Involvment, Acculturation -Related Factors and Attachment

PURPOSE: The overarching research question of the study was: Is parental involvement in school and peer domains explained by parental acculturation, parent-adolescent acculturation gap, acculturative parenting stress and adolescent-parent attachment; and does parental school and peer involvement, in turn explain the frequency of substance use in clinically diagnosed (i.e. adolescents who met criteria for a Diagnostic Statistical Manual-IV [DSM-IV] clinical diagnosis of substance abuse/dependence) Hispanic adolescents?

METHODS: The sample for this study consisted of 94 Hispanic adolescent-mother pairs. The adolescent sample was 65% male, and 35% female, with a mean age of 15 years. More than half of the adolescents were born in the United States (60%) and had resided in the U.S. for an average of 12 years; 80% of the caregivers (primarily mothers) were foreign-born and lived in the U.S. for an average of 21 years. Correlation and hierarchical regression were used to answer the research questions.

RESULTS: The hypothesized model and corresponding anticipated effect of the relationship between parental school and peer involvement on adolescents' frequency of alcohol, marijuana and cocaine use was not supported by the data. Parental “acculturation-related” variables did not explain any of the variance in adolescent substance use frequency in this sample. However, some interesting relationships were found: The larger the acculturation gap, the lower the parental involvement in school tended to be (r = -.21, p < .05). Adolescents who experienced a greater acculturation gap with their parents (-.81, p >.01) had an earlier onset of marijuana (-.33, p < .01) and cocaine use (r = -.24, p <.01). The less acculturated parents experienced more parenting stress (r = -.31, p = < .01). Attachment was positively associated with parental peer involvement (r = .24, p < .05) and inversely associated with parenting acculturative stress (r = -.24, p < .05). Attachment was also positively associated with marijuana (r = .39, p < .01) and cocaine use (r = .33, p < .01). Adolescent males reported being more attached to their mothers when compared to adolescent females (r = .22, p >.05), they also reported using marijuana more frequently than females (.21, p >.05).

IMPLICATIONS: The type of parental involvement and parenting practices needed once substance use has taken hold may be much more complex than those needed prior to the emergence of substance abuse. Focus on factors such as parental attitudes favorable to drug use, high family conflict, the role played by mothers' parenting style and the level of attachment between mothers and their male offspring in particular will be important. Hispanic mothers may need to be encouraged to change their parenting styles from permissive to more authoritative, and learn to establish stronger limits and appropriate consequences that may deter their adolescents who have successfully completed treatment keep from relapsing once they return to their familiar peer and school environment.