Social background, personal relationships, and self-descriptions as predictors of drug-user status: a study of adolescents in post-revolutionary Iran

Abstract

Iranian adolescents who have ever used drugs exhibit significant differences from their non-using peers in terms of their lowered educational aspirations, reported health and sense of well-being; and they would be more likely to rely upon friends' rather than parents' support if in serious trouble. But, unlike many studies of European, American and South-East Asian adolescents, the present sample of drug users show few other signs of rebelliousness or alienation: they report themselves as religious as the non-users, and their school performance is little depressed. The drug user sub-sample contains a disproportionately high number of children from both the richest and the poorest families in society.