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Parent-adolescent congruence for adolescent substance use

Journal of Youth and Adolescence volume 19, pages 623–635 (1990)Cite this article

Abstract

Parental reports of adolescent substance use were compared to the adolescents' self-reports using identical scales. Congruence was defined as exact agreement on whether adolescents were current users, ex-users, or never-users. Both parents were found to be less accurate in predicting their adolescents' alcohol use compared to cigarette or marijuana use. Single mothers were significantly less likely to be congruent than were mothers from two-parent households. Mother and father congruence on all substances was unrelated to the adolescent's sex, race, or after school employment. For both parents, congruence for adolescent marijuana use was significantly related to the age and GPA of the adolescent. Congruence may also reflect important properties of family functioning, as significant relations were found between both adolescent and parent ratings of family cohesion and parent-adolescent congruence on perceptions of marijuana use.

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Author information

Affiliations

  1. University of Oregon, Canada

    Jennifer Langhinrichsen & Edward Lichtenstein

  2. Oregon Research Institute, Canada

    Edward Lichtenstein, John R. Seeley, Hyman Hops, Dennis V. Ary, Elizabeth Tildesley & Judy Andrews

Authors
  1. Jennifer Langhinrichsen
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  2. Edward Lichtenstein
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  3. John R. Seeley
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  4. Hyman Hops
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  5. Dennis V. Ary
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  6. Elizabeth Tildesley
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  7. Judy Andrews
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Additional information

This research was supported by Grant DA03706 from the National Institute of Drug Abuse (Hyman Hops, Principal Investigator).

Jennifer Langhinrichsen is a doctoral candidate in psychology interested in adolescent and family interactions. The other authors are psychologists or data analysts working on family influences on substance use and mental health.

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Langhinrichsen, J., Lichtenstein, E., Seeley, J.R. et al. Parent-adolescent congruence for adolescent substance use. J Youth Adolescence 19, 623–635 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01537181

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01537181

Keywords

  • Alcohol
  • Health Psychology
  • Significant Relation
  • Family Functioning
  • Parental Report