Parenting and Teen Risk in College: A Person-Centered Approach

Pennsylvania State University, The, University Park PA

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Linked publications & trials

Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Heavy drinking and related problems represent a significant concern on college campuses, as reflected by the mission of the NIAAA Steering Committee on Underage Drinking Research and Prevention to stimulate research focused on reducing the effects of alcohol consumption among underage individuals (NIAAA, 2006). Research has identified peers and the environment as key factors in underage drinking. In addition, literature has acknowledged the importance of family in adolescent substance use, even as late as college (Read et al., 2005;Wood et al., 2001). Current parent-based interventions have yielded promising results, showing that parent involvement at the college-level can produce significant differences in consumption and related problems (Turrisi et al., 2000, 2001). However, this field is relatively young, and several areas remain in which improvements can be made to increase program efficacy. The proposed study aims to build upon current parent-based efforts designed to reduce underage college alcohol misuse and related risk. Research has identified several parenting characteristics (e.g., modeling, monitoring, etc), studied in isolation or utilizing lower-order interactions, as potentially harmful or protective in regard to college alcohol use and related risk. However, research has not yet explored the higher-order contributions of different parenting factors on college alcohol use and how this may relate to other alcohol-related risk factors. The proposed study seeks to examine the differential impact of latent combinations of parenting behaviors and other indicators of underage alcohol-related risk on alcohol use and related consequences. Parent-based interventions will be able to use this information to a) identify families that are most in need of intervention and/or b) help parents enhance particular characteristics that, in combination, will be the most effective at reducing college student alcohol use and related risk. The specific aims are to: 1) identify groups of college students with unique profiles of perceived parenting characteristics and to compare these profiles on college drinking outcomes using latent profile analysis (LPA), 2) identify groups of college students with unique classes of alcohol-related risk and to compare these profiles on a range of experienced negative consequences using latent class analysis (LCA), and 3) examine the extent to which perceived parenting characteristics are associated with college alcohol-related risk by placing the resulting profiles from Aims 1 and 2 into a confirmatory model using Mplus. Data for the proposed research will be taken from the control condition of a current NIAAA funded project (R01 AA015737) assessing a parent-based intervention.