Citation

Perkins M, Elifson KW, Sterk CE. J. Drug Iss. 2010; 40(2): 353-378.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, Florida State University, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice)

DOI

10.1177/002204261004000205

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The main objective of this paper is to investigate potential predictors of drug risk among a community-based sample of individuals who are exposed to illicit drugs. The four domains of interest are individual socio-demographic and social-psychological attributes, current situational circumstances and family-of-origin characteristics. Interviews were conducted with 242 individuals who were recruited in Atlanta, Georgia. Initial descriptive analyses were followed by multivariate analyses. The final model predicted 60% of the variance in drug risk. Current situational circumstances were statistically significant regarding drug risk. Family-of-origin characteristics also were significant, even when entered into the predictive model after current situational circumstances. In addition to individual social-psychological characteristics such as depression and self-esteem, the impact of childhood emotional abuse is noted. The findings indicate a need for considering proximal as well as more distal influences on drug risk behavior when designing drug use prevention and intervention programs.

Language: en