Family Beliefs among Adolescents at Risk for Substance Abuse

This study investigates the extent to which adolescents identified as at-risk for substance abuse express different beliefs about the importance of family, religiosity, education, and work in comparison to their own parents and to adolescents and parents in control group. It was hypothesized that the success of parents in communicating such values to their children could be a significant variable in risk of substance abuse. We found that parents of at-risk adolescents did not hold significantly different beliefs than parents in the control group. Beliefs of the at-risk adolescents were significantly different from other adolescents and both parent groups. We also found that the absolute difference in age between parent and adolescent significantly smaller in the at-risk group as compared to the control group.