Document Type

Article

Original Publication Date

2015

Journal/Book/Conference Title

Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment

Volume

48

Issue

1

First Page

28

Last Page

36

DOI of Original Publication

10.1016/j.jsat.2014.07.008

Comments

Originally published at 10.1016/j.jsat.2014.07.008.

Part of JSAT Special issue on Prescription Drug Abuse.

Date of Submission

February 2015

Abstract

Non-medical use of prescription drugs (NMUPD) by adolescents is a significant public health concern. The present study investigated the profile of NMUPD in 1349 adolescent offenders from the Pathways to Desistance project, and whether NMUPD predicted future delinquency using longitudinal data. Results indicated that increased frequency and recency of NMUPD in adolescent offenders are related to some demographic factors, as well as increased risk for violence exposure, mental health diagnoses, other drug use, and previous delinquency, suggesting that severity of NMUPD is important to consider. However, ANCOVA analyses found that NMUPD was not a significant predictor of drug-related, non-aggressive, or aggressive delinquency 12 months later beyond other known correlates of delinquency. Age, sex, exposure to violence, lower socioeconomic status, more alcohol use, and having delinquency histories were more important than NMUPD in predicting future delinquency. These findings suggest that although NMUPD is an important risk factor relating to many correlates of delinquency, it does not predict future delinquency beyond other known risk factors.

Rights

Copyright © Elsevier Ltd. NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, Volume 48, Issue 1, January 2015, Pages 28–36, doi:10.1016/j.jsat.2014.07.008.

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VCU Psychology Publications

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