TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2009//
TI  - Impact of hurricane Rita on adolescent substance use
JO  - Psychiatry interpersonal and biological processes
A1  - Rohrbach, Louise A.
A1  - Grana, Rachel
A1  - Vernberg, Eric
A1  - Sussman, Steve
A1  - Sun, Ping
SP  - 222
EP  - 237
VL  - 72
IS  - 3
N2  - Little systematic research attention has been devoted to the impact of natural disasters on adolescent substance use. The present study examined relationships among exposure to Hurricane Rita, post-traumatic stress (PTS) symptoms, and changes in adolescent substance use from 13 months pre-disaster to seven and 19 months post-disaster. Subjects were 280 high school students in southwestern Louisiana who participated in a drug abuse prevention intervention trial prior to the hurricane. Two-thirds of participants were female and 68% were white. Students completed surveys at baseline (13 months pre-hurricane) and two followups (seven and 19 months post-hurricane). Results indicated a positive bivariate relationship between PTS symptoms, assessed at 7 months post-hurricane, and increases in alcohol (p < .05) and marijuana use (p < .10) from baseline to the 7 months post-hurricane follow-up. When these associations were examined collectively with other hurricane-related predictors in multivariate regression models, PTS symptoms did not predict increases in substance use. However, objective exposure to the hurricane predicted increases in marijuana use, and post-hurricane negative life events predicted increases in all three types of substance use (ps < .10). These findings suggest that increased substance use may be one of the behaviors that adolescents exhibit in reaction to exposure to hurricanes.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0033-2747
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1521/psyc.2009.72.3.222
ID  - ref1
ER  -