Pubertal Timing and Adolescent Substance Use: Psychological and Social Mediators

说明(由申请人提供)：青少年药物使用仍然是一个重大的公共卫生问题，因为与使用药物有关的短期和长期身体和社会后果。研究表明，青春期的时间，即青少年相对于同龄人开始青春期发育的时间，可能会导致青少年使用药物。然而，目前还不清楚为什么青春期的时机可能会导致物质使用。这项拟议的研究将通过检验两个相互竞争的假说：成熟偏差假说和早熟假说来检验青春期时机和物质使用发展之间的关系。本研究的具体目的是：1)比较成熟偏差假说和早熟假说，确定11岁时自我报告的青春期时机与从17岁到17岁的物质使用(即香烟、酒精和大麻)的发展之间的关系；2)遵循成熟偏差假说，确定心理变量(如身体满意度、焦虑、抑郁和感觉寻求)是否在青春期时机和物质使用发展之间的关系中起中介作用；3)遵循早熟假设，确定社会变量(亲密朋友的青春期发育和亲密朋友的物质使用)是否在青春期时间与物质使用的发展之间起中介作用。拟议的研究将对青少年物质使用研究(R01 DA13459)的背景下未确定的数据进行二次分析，这是一项对6-8年级青少年基线(n=5,220)的三个顺序队列的纵向研究。建议研究中使用的主要分析方法将是纵向增长模型(LGM)。如果青春期的时机确实影响青少年物质的使用，那么确定这种关系的中介是至关重要的。青春期开始的时间不能改变，但我们可以设计干预措施，影响可能导致青少年药物使用下降的心理或社会因素。然后，这些干预措施可以根据青少年的青春期时间，针对那些使用药物风险最高的人，以延迟和减缓青少年使用药物的发展。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Adolescent substance use remains a significant public health issue due to the short- and long-term physical and social consequences related to use. Research has shown that pubertal timing, when adolescents begin pubertal development relative to their peers, may lead to adolescent substance use. However, it is not clear why pubertal timing may lead to substance use. The proposed research will examine the relationship between pubertal timing and the development of substance use by testing two competing hypotheses: the maturational-deviance and early-maturational hypotheses. The specific aims of the study are: 1) To compare the maturational-deviance and early-maturation hypotheses by determining the relationship between self-reported pubertal timing at age 11 and the development of substance use (i.e., cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana) through age 17; 2) Following the maturational-deviance hypothesis, to determine whether psychological variables (i.e., body satisfaction, anxiety, depression, and sensation seeking) mediate the relationship between pubertal timing and the development of substance use; and 3) Following the earlyrinaturation hypothesis, to determine whether social variables (i.e., close friends' pubertal development and close friends' substance use) mediate the relationship between pubertal timing and the development of substance use. The proposed research will conduct a secondary analysis of de-identified data from the Context of Adolescent Substance Use study (R01 DA13459), a longitudinal study of three sequential cohorts of adolescents in grades 6-8 at baseline (n=5,220). The primary analytic approach used in the proposed research will be longitudinal growth modeling (LGM). If pubertal timing does impact adolescent substance use, it is crucial to determine the mediators of this relationship. The timing of pubertal onset cannot be altered but we can design interventions to impact psychological or social factors that may lead to the decline of adolescent substance use. These interventions can then be targeted to those most at risk for substance use based on their pubertal timing in order to delay and slow the development of substance use among adolescents.