Psychological Predictors of Substance Abuse Among Urban Black Male Adolescents

Three sets of variables-Lifestyle, Social Support/Stress, and Well Being-were used to predict frequency of alcohol, marijuana, and hard drug use among urban African-American male adolescents. A sample of 150 adolescents, most of whom had dropped out of school, participated in an initial 90-minute interview and a follow-up interview six months later. The prevalence rates for illicit substance use among this sample of Black males were higher than the National average. Using a hierarchical regression approach, different psychosocial variables were found to predict use of different substances. Lifestyle was a significant predictor of marijuana and hard drug use at both measurement points, and a predictor of alcohol use at one of two measurement points. Support/Stress explained significant variance in alcohol use at both measurement points, and in marijuana use at one of two measurement points. Among individual predictor variables, in cross-sectional analyses (with all predictor variables entered) independent ...