Life events stress and its relationship to adolescent drug use.

Abstract

The present study investigated the relationship between life events stress and drug use among institutionalized and noninstitutionalized adolescents. The effects of gender on drug use and life events stress were also studied. Thirty-eight males from a state supported juvenile institution for adjudicated males and 39 females from a state supported juvenile institution for females were compared to control groups of 36 male and 42 female high school students from a rural southeastern Kansas county high school. The subJects were administered the Adolescent Life Change Event Scale (ALCES) and the Chemical Use Survey (CUS). The institutionalized subjects were asked to report the events they had experienced and the substances they had used for the one year period prior to entering the institution. Group means for both dependent measures were analyzed using 2X2. male versus female by institutionalized versus noninstutionalized. analysis of variance. Results indicated significant differences for gender and institutional status on the ALCES. More specifically. Females and institutionalized subjects showed higher levels of stress than their male and noninstitutionalized counterparts. CUS scores also showed a significant difference for institutional status in that institutionalized subjects showed a higher degree of drug use than the on institutionalized subjects. When the substance use scores were covaried with the life events stress scores, significant differences appeared between genders and institutional status. More specifically, the institutionatized subjects and male subjects scored higher, indicating higher drug usage.