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The Interactive Effects of Parental Knowledge with Impulsivity and Sensation Seeking in Adolescent Substance Use

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Abstract

This study examined whether interactions of parental knowledge of adolescent’s whereabouts with impulsivity and sensation seeking in the prediction of adolescent substance use supported the diathesis–stress or differential susceptibility model in 230 15-year old adolescents (53% girls). Interactions between impulsivity and parental knowledge supported the diathesis–stress model with high impulsivity as a vulnerability factor: when impulsivity was higher, low levels of parental knowledge were associated with higher levels of substance use. Interactions between sensation seeking and parental knowledge supported differential susceptibility with low sensation seeking as a susceptibility factor; low parental knowledge was associated with higher substance use and high parental knowledge with lower substance use when sensation seeking was lower. Our results show that impulsivity and sensation seeking should be considered independently. Results support previous research suggesting that impulsivity in adolescence may act as a vulnerability factor and suggests that low sensation seeking may be a susceptibility factor.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Amélie Rivest and Maria Rosa for data management, and to their partner, the Institut de la Statistique du Québec. The authors thank all the parents and children for their generous participation in the study.

Funding

This study was funded by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research via grant MOP-97910; the Fonds de Recherche en Santé du Québec via a scholarship to CR and a fellowship to NC-R; the Fonds Québécois de la Recherche sur la Nature et les Technologies via Fellowship 149169 to NC-R; and the Fonds Québécois pour la recherche sur la Société et la Culture grant 2009-RG-124779. The funding sources had no role in the study design, collection, analysis or interpretation of the data, writing the manuscript, or the decision to submit the paper for publication.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Charlie Rioux

  2. CHU Ste-Justine Research Centre, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Charlie Rioux, Natalie Castellanos-Ryan, Frank Vitaro & Jean R. Séguin

  3. School of Psychoeducation, Université de Montréal, Pavillon Marie-Victorin, 90 av. Vincent-d’Indy, Outremont, Montreal, QC, H2V 2S9, Canada

    Natalie Castellanos-Ryan, Sophie Parent & Frank Vitaro

  4. Department of Psychiatry, Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Jean R. Séguin

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  1. Charlie Rioux
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Correspondence to Natalie Castellanos-Ryan.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Rioux, C., Castellanos-Ryan, N., Parent, S. et al. The Interactive Effects of Parental Knowledge with Impulsivity and Sensation Seeking in Adolescent Substance Use. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev 50, 95–107 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-018-0825-5

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