Do Parental Communication and Monitoring Counteract Substance Use in Adolescents? A Scoping Review of Dyadic Studies.

Abstract

In interpersonal research, it is often essential to consider multiple perspectives to fully capture the complexity of social relationships. For this reason, studies on the parent-child relationship frequently collect data from both parties. However, it remains unclear how such dyadic data are analyzed, and no systematic summary of findings currently exists. This scoping review examined studies that used dyadic data to explore the impact of parent-adolescent communication and parental monitoring on adolescent substance use, while also tracking the evolution of dyadic methodologies. A literature search across five databases yielded 2,849 articles, plus 18 manually added, narrowing to 31 studies from 1985 to 2022. Inclusion criteria were: (i) quantitative study, (ii) dyadic measures of communication and monitoring obtained by surveying both the adolescent and their caregiver, (iii) an adolescent population aged 10 to 17 years, and (iv) healthy, non-clinical participants. Findings on communication were mixed: one study linked it to reduced substance use, one to increased use, seven reported mixed results, and four found no significant association. Parental monitoring was never associated with increased use; most findings either supported a protective effect or showed no significant relationship. Notably, none of the studies employed an appropriate dyadic data analysis framework. In conclusion, this review highlights the importance of integrating dyadic perspectives and calls for standardized methodological approaches to better understand the interpersonal factors influencing adolescent substance use.