Family management risk and protective factors for adolescent substance use in South Africa Full Text

The National Institutes of Health define bullying as a series of interactions whereby a group or individual verbally or physically assaults a victim who is perceived to be weaker [56]. All adolescents who participate in bullying, whether they are the perpetrator, the victim, or a combination of both roles, have been shown to have increased risk of mental health disorders and psychosocial problems when compared with those who do not participate [57, 58]. Some research shows that females are more likely to be bullied via verbal attacks and gossip than males, who are usually physically bullied [57]. Tobler et al. (2011) found a positive association between environment deprivation and the alcohol use.

Aim of This Study

The traits of high impulsivity, rebelliousness, difficulty in regulating emotions, and alexithymia can be considered negative characteristic traits. These adolescents suffer from the inability to self-regulate their emotions, so they tend to externalize their behaviors as a way to avoid or suppress the negative feelings that they are experiencing [41, 47, 48]. On the other hand, engaging in such behaviors could plausibly provide a greater sense of positive emotions and make them feel good [49]. Apart from that, evidence from a neurophysiological point of view also suggests that the compulsive drive toward drug use is complemented by deficits in impulse control and decision making (impulsive trait) [50].

Why is CDC addressing youth high-risk substance use?

(1) Sociocultural theory of drug abuse postulates that substance abuse is derived from the values shared by a specific society and context, which are culturally determined. For instance, in some cultures, adolescents are permitted to consume alcohol and smoke marijuana, and in other cultures they are not permitted to do so. Moreover, in such cultures, alcohol and tobacco are considered as a normal product, and used by youth and adults in everyday life and as a social activity or a way to spend time and have fun within the peer group, considering drug use as a life experience.

Risk Factors for High-Risk Substance Use

That is, adolescents are less likely to engage in deviant behaviors, such as substance use, and value socially accepted norms when they feel a sense of belonging, support, and connection within their family, and other conventional institutions (Reeb et al., 2015). Drug-related substances in this context refer to narcotics, opioids, psychoactive substances, amphetamines, cannabis, ecstasy, heroin, cocaine, hallucinogens, depressants, and stimulants. The two most commonly abused substances not included in this review are nicotine (tobacco) and alcohol. Further, “adolescence” in this study refers to members of the population aged between 10 to 18 years [21]. Moreover, according to an overview of a systematic review about interventions for adolescent substance abuse (Das et al., 2016), school programs based on the promotion of social competence and the antidrug information were effective.

“This could include interventions to improve communication, positive parenting skills and conflict resolution,” she says. If you are starting a conversation about substance use, choose a place where you and your teen are both comfortable. The paper by Dash et al. (2020) highlight adolescent with a disease who needs routine medical pain treatment have higher risk of opioid misuse [38]. The adolescents who have disorder symptoms may have a risk for opioid misuse despite for the pain intensity. Schools, families, and communities should work together to build a safe environment for youth at school and at home. After variables selection and dropping of most of the variables from the final models, this section as well as Tables 2 and 3 outlines statistically significant results of the specific items of the constructs that are measures of the broad study constructs.

• A legal definition of child neglect includes any situation where a child’s caregiver does not provide adequate living necessities, including protection, clothing, health care, and/or food [31].
• For example, Lippold and colleagues (2014) applied a propensity score analysis to examine maternal knowledge as a predictor of and adolescent alcohol, cigarette, and other drug use during middle school.
• Drug abuse is a global problem; 5.6% of the global population aged 15–64 years used drugs at least once during 2016 [1].
• The search strategy employed was performed in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for a Systematic Review and Meta-analysis (PRISMA) checklist.

Social Stigma and Poverty: Negative Identity and Crime

Additional research has begun to explore the effects of child neglect on adolescent brain development. Because children in adolescence are undergoing developmental changes, neglect during this period can have long-term effects [41]. It is difficult to study the ramifications of neglect on the brain because of the existence of other contributing factors, such as domestic violence, socioeconomic status, and prenatal exposure to substances [39].

Data analyses

We adopted a review approach that synthesized existing evidence on the risk and protective factors of adolescents engaging in drug abuse. Although this systematic review builds on the conclusion of a rigorous review of studies in different teen drug abuse settings, there are some potential limitations to this work. We may have missed some other important factors, as we only included English articles, and article extraction was only done from the three search engines mentioned.

• Finally, legal legislation and enforcement against drug abuse should be engaged with regularly as part of our commitment to combat this public health burden.
• Furthermore, because the adolescent prefrontal cortex is not fully developed, it is characterized by increased sensitivity to reward and decreased ability to inhibit responses to stimulus, thus limiting decision-making ability and behavior control throughout adolescence [14, 26].
• Other factors should however also be taken into account such as peers, communities, workplace, government policies and services, and the broader economic and social environment which all affect family well-being in an “ecological” manner [6].
• Neighborhood social processes are often more subjective in nature compared to structural factors and are typically measured via an individual’s perception of ties to neighbors in the community, informal social control, and level of community function (Mrug & Windle, 2009).
• With close to half of the South African population consisting of youth 20 years old or younger [2], it is important to pay attention to the use of Alcohol and other Drugs (AODs) by this group due to the potential implications for the country’s socio-economic development [3].

Moreover, the degree to which the cognitive control system is recruited during adolescence is largely a result of motivational salience, such as the value placed on performing the task or the presence of peers (Johnson, Grossmann, & Cohen Kadosh, 2009). These encompass biological sex, biological differences (e.g., genes, neurobiology), and temperament (i.e., heritable differences in emotional, motor, attentional, and self-regulation processes) among other innate factors. Biologically based individual characteristics often contribute to the degree to which adolescents are susceptible to socialization contexts.