Abstract
Increased social stress in the context of peer interactions is associated with multiple negative health outcomes, including substance use. Addressing social stress could provide protective effects for adolescents who are particularly vulnerable to peer-based issues such as loneliness and perceived isolation. Toward this end, we examined the efficacy of a 20-min substance use intervention named peer network counseling to reduce social stress with 119 urban adolescents. Adolescents presenting at primary care clinics were randomized into treatment or control conditions and followed for 6 months. Utilizing a repeated measures general linear model, we examined the effects of peer network counseling while controlling for race, gender, age, depression symptoms, and substance use (alcohol, marijuana). At 6 months the peer network counseling condition decreased social stress compared to controls (p < 0.05). A linear mixed-effects moderation model revealed that peer network counseling temporarily moderated the effect of alcohol use, but not for marijuana or heavy alcohol use. Peer network counseling seems to reduce social stress, which suppresses alcohol use among peer network counseling participants in the short term. These promising findings appear to support the efficacy of peer network counseling in reducing social stress, which can moderate alcohol use among urban adolescents.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Berkman, L. F., & Glass, T. (2000). Social integration, social networks, social support, and health. In L. Berkman & I. Kawachi (Eds.), Social epidemiology (pp. 137–173). New York: Oxford University Press, Inc.
Cacioppo, S., Grippo, A. J., London, S., Goossens, L., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2015). Loneliness: Clinical import and interventions. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10(2), 238–249.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2012). Youth risk behavior survey. Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/yrbs. Accessed 15 June 2012.
Dishion, T. J., Patterson, G. R., Stoolmiller, M., & Skinner, M. S. (1991). Family, school, and behavioral antecedents to early adolescent involvement with antisocial peers. Developmental Psychology, 27(1), 172–180.
van Dulmen, M. H. M., & Goossens, L. (2013). Loneliness trajectories [Editorial]. Journal of Adolescence, 36(6), 1247–1249.
Dyal, S. R., & Valente, T. W. (2015). A systematic review of loneliness and smoking: Small effects, big implications. Substance Use & Misuse, 50(13), 1697–1716.
Eisinga, R., Grotenhuis, M., & Pelzer, B. (2013). The reliability of a two-item scale: Pearson, Cronbach, or Spearman-Brown? International Journal of Public Health, 58(4), 637–642.
Fuhrmann, D., Knoll, L. J., & Blakemore, S. -J. (2015). Adolescence as a sensitive period of brain development [Opinion]. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 19(10), 558–566.
Grzywacz, J. G., & Almeida, D. M. (2008). Stress and binge drinking: A daily process examination of stressor pile-up and socioeconomic status in affect regulation. International Journal of Stress Management, 15(4), 364–380.
Hartup, W. W. (2009). Critical issues and theoretical viewpoints. In K.H. Rubin, W. M. Bukowski, & B. Laursen (Eds.), Handbook of peer interactions, relationships, and groups (pp. 3–19). New York: Guilford Press.
Hayes, A. F. (2013). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach. New York: The Guilford Press.
IBM Corp. Released. (2012). IBM SPSS statistics for windows, version 21.0. Armonk, NY: IBM Corp.
Jamieson, J. P., & Mendes, W. B. (2016). Social stress facilitates risk in youths. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Advance online publication. PMID: 26866533.
Laursen, B., & Hartl, A. C. (2013). Understanding loneliness during adolescence: Developmental changes that increase the risk of perceived social isolation. Journal of Adolescence, 36(6), 1261–1268.
Mason, M., Light, J., Campbell, L., Keyser-Marcus, L., Crewe, S., Way, T., Saunders, H., King, L., Zaharakis, N., & McHenry, C. (2015). Peer network counseling with urban adolescents: A randomized controlled trial with moderate substance users. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 58, 16–24.
Mason, M., Pate, P., Drapkin, M., & Sozinho, K. (2011). Motivational interviewing integrated with a social network intervention for female adolescents: A randomized pilot study in urban primary care. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 41(2), 148–155.
Miller, W., & Rollnick, S. (2013). Motivational interviewing. New York: Guilford Press.
Molloy, L. E., Gest, S. D., & Rulison, K. L. (2011). Peer influences on academic motivation: Exploring multiple methods of assessing youths’ most “influential” peer relationships. Journal of Early Adolescence, 31(1), 13–40.
Qualter, P., Brown, S. L., Rotenberg, K. J., Vanhalst, J., Harris, R. A., Goossens, L., Bangee, M., & Munne, P. (2013). Trajectories of loneliness during childhood and adolescence: Predictors and health outcomes. Journal of Adolescence, 36(6), 1283–1293.
Reynolds, C. R., & Kamphaus, R. W. (2004). BASC-2: Behavior assessment system for children. 2nd ed. Bloomington, MN: Pearson.
Rollnick, S., Miller, W., & Butler, C. (2008). Motivational interviewing in health care: Helping patients change behavior. New York: Guilford Press.
Rubin, D. B. (1987). Multiple imputation for nonresponse in surveys. New York: J. Wiley & Sons.
Stickley, A., Koyanangi, A., Koposov, R., Schwab-Stone, M., & Ruchkin, V. (2014). Loneliness and health risk behaviours among Russian and U.S. adolescents: A cross-sectional study. BMC Public Health, 14(366). PMID: 24735570. PMCID: PMC4020347.
Van Rode, V., Rotsaert, M., & Delhaye, M. (2015). Loneliness and adolescence: Clinical implications and outlook. Literature review. Revue Médicale de Bruxelles, 36(5), 415–420.
Funding
This research was supported by a grant, number 1R34DA032808, from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to the first author. The findings and conclusions are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, or National Institute of Health.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors have no conflict of interest related to this manuscript or the related research.
Protection of participants
The authors’ university and the city health department’s institutional review boards approved the research protocol, and the study received a federal Certificate of Confidentiality from the National Institutes of Health.
Informed consent
All participants provided informed consent and if a minor assent with parental consent.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Mason, M.J., Zaharakis, N.M. & Sabo, R. Reducing Social Stress in Urban Adolescents with Peer Network Counseling. J Child Fam Stud 25, 3488–3496 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-016-0515-5
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-016-0515-5