Psychiatric and substance use disorders in late adolescence: the role of risk and perceived social support

Abstract

This article explores how measures of risk and perceived social support relate to different configurations of adolescent psychopathology using data from a community-based, longitudinal investigation of 284 individuals interviewed in 1982 at age 5 and again at age 19. Discriminant analysis was used to assess differences in risk and social support variables among eight clusters of youth: anxious, anxious drinkers, depressed, depressed drug abusers, antisocial, antisocial drinkers, drug abusers, problem drinkers, and a ninth group representing those participants without a diagnosis. The results indicated that one function, defined by loadings for (low) family support and (high) early cumulative risk, accounted for the majority of between-group associations. Two groups of drug-abusing youth with multiple adjustment problems were highest on this function, while non-disordered youth and a group of participants with substance abuse alone were lowest. Findings are discussed in terms of the need to consider comorbidity when examining risk factors for later disorder.