Short CommunicationThe association of puberty and young adolescent alcohol use: Do parents have a moderating role?
Introduction
Alcohol use and misuse increase during early adolescence (10–14 years of age) (Kelly, O'Flaherty, Toumbourou, et al., 2011), and adolescents who are advanced in their pubertal development may be ill-prepared for contextual influences on alcohol use (Hummel, Shelton, Heron, Moore, & van den Bree, 2013). Early pubertal development predicts substance use (Kelly et al., 2012), and effects are independent of age (Kaltiala-Heino, Koivisto, Marttunen, & Fröjd, 2011). Relatively little research has focused on early adolescents, when alcohol use often emerges, and pubertal development begins.
Parents have an important protective role in reducing alcohol-related risks (Kelly, O'Flaherty, Toumbourou, et al., 2011). Key protective factors include communication of clear rules about alcohol non-use (Habib et al., 2010, Simons-Morton, 2004), providing a safe and secure emotional environment (Choquet et al., 2008, Luyckx et al., 2011), and effectively managing family distress (Chan et al., 2013, Kelly, Toumbourou, O'Flaherty, et al., 2011). Based on Contextual Amplification Theory (Ge, Brody, Conger, Simons, & Murry, 2002), parenting may amplify existing risks of pubertal development on alcohol use.
Research on the interplay of parenting, pubertal development, and alcohol use is comparatively rare (Hummel et al., 2013). Prior research has focused on negative family factors such as lax supervision, harsh/inconsistent parenting, family violence (Costello, Sung, Worthman, & Angold, 2007), and positive factors, such as warmth, love, and caring behaviors (Shelton & van den Bree, 2010). These studies indicate that when family relationship quality is low, the risk of alcohol use is elevated for early maturing girls but not boys (Costello et al., 2007, Shelton and van den Bree, 2010). Other research show that family factors may hasten pubertal development (Belsky et al., 2007, Ellis, 2004, Ellis and Essex, 2007, Ellis and Garber, 2000, Moffitt et al., 1992) and externalizing behaviors (Ellis et al., 2003, Ge et al., 2002).
This study examined the extent to which positive and negative dimensions of family relationships moderated the association of pubertal development and alcohol use. This is important to evaluate, because different studies show each to be significantly related to alcohol use in early maturing girls, yet these dimensions are obliquely related, and there are gender differences in how alcohol use develops in response to family problems (Chan et al., 2013, Kelly, O'Flaherty, Toumbourou, et al., 2011). We examined these associations in a large sample of young adolescents (10–14 years of age), given the importance of this age period in the development of alcohol use and the significant role of parents in this developmental period relative to later periods (Bray, Adams, Getz, & Baer, 2001). Controls included age, parental substance use, involvement in peer drinking networks, and school-level variance in alcohol use. Following Costello et al. (2007) and Shelton and van den Bree (2010), we hypothesized that family factors would moderate the association of pubertal stage with alcohol use, with this effect most pronounced for girls.
Section snippets
Participants
Participants were students who participated in the Healthy Neighbourhoods Study in 2006. The survey involved 7866 students (10–14 years old) from 231 schools located in 30 communities across three States in Australia (N = 7866). Surveys were administered in school classrooms (Jacka et al., 2010). Communities were selected by random stratification according to socioeconomic disadvantage (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2009). Within each community, primary (n = 164) and secondary schools (n = 82) were
Preliminary analyses
A higher proportion of boys had consumed alcohol (p < .001), and as expected, alcohol use was related to advanced pubertal stages (p < .001) (see Table 1). There were lower levels of emotional closeness, higher levels of family conflict, and more parent permissiveness of alcohol use in adolescents who had consumed alcohol compared to those who had not (ps < .001). There were comparable numbers of boys and girls in middle puberty, but most boys (52%) were at the initial stage. A larger proportion of
Discussion
The present study is unique in that it assessed the simultaneous contribution of both positive and negative dimensions of family relationship quality on alcohol use. Contrary to our hypothesis, and despite having sufficient statistical power, it was found that family factors did not moderate the association of pubertal stage with alcohol use. Pubertal status, parental permissiveness, and family conflict were significant independent associates of alcohol use, but these effects were independent
Role of funding sources
This research was funded by an NHMRC Project Grant to J. Williams, J. Toumbourou, R. Homel, and G. Patton. The study was supported by a VicHealth Research Fellowship awarded to J. Toumbourou. Data analysis and preparation of this manuscript was supported by NHMRC Project 569539 and ARC DP130102015 to A. B. Kelly (first investigator). Study sponsors were not directly involved in the production of this manuscript or decision to submit the manuscript for publication.
Contributors
Li is a PhD student under the supervision of the second and fourth authors. Chan assisted Li in the initial data analysis. Li and Kelly wrote the first draft of the manuscript and all authors contributed to and have approved the final manuscript.
Conflict of interest
All authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
Acknowledgments
This research was funded by an NHMRC Project Grant to J. Williams, J. Toumbourou, R. Homel, and G. Patton. Data analysis and preparation of this manuscript was supported by NHMRC Project 569539 and ARC DP130102015 to A. B. Kelly (first investigator). The first author is a PhD student under the supervision of the second and fourth authors. Study sponsors were not directly involved in the production of this manuscript or decision to submit the manuscript for publication. We thank Ross Young and
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