The Intergenerational Transmission of Substance Use: The Moderating Effects of Parental Mental Health and Parent-Child Relationships Quality

Introduction

Intergenerational transmission, the concept of children following their parents’ behavior patterns, is well-established in the literature; however, only a percentage of children will, for example, begin using substances such as alcohol, marijuana, and tobacco in adolescence when their parents use these substances (Ali, Dean, & Hedden, 2016; Kim-Cohen, 2007). The conditions under which this may occur still need to be explored. In this study with an adolescent population at high risk for substance use (SU), we examined two possible moderators of the relationship between parent and adolescent SU: general parent mental health (MH) and the relationship quality between the parent and adolescent.

Methods

Adolescents (n = 197) were early stage juvenile offenders. Using baseline data from a larger intervention study, adolescents and their parents self-reported SU (i.e., tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana) using the Family Check-up questionnaire (FCU; Dishion & Kavanagh, 2003), and parents reported on their own MH symptoms on the FCU as well. We assessed parent-adolescent relationship quality with the Parenting Relationship Questionnaire (Kamphaus & Reynolds, 2006). We analyzed use of individual substances and also created composite scales for parent SU and adolescent SU in order to consider global SU. We calculated interaction terms for parent SU with parent MH and then with parent-adolescent relationship quality, and completed hierarchical multiple regressions for individual SU and composite SU.

Results

Adolescents reported use of tobacco (17.3%), alcohol (22.8%), and marijuana (36%). Parents reported use of tobacco (46.2%), alcohol (65.5%), and marijuana (11.1%). In bivariate analysis, we found significant correlations between: parent and adolescent alcohol use, parent alcohol use and parent MH, parent alcohol use and parent-child relationship quality, and parent MH and adolescent tobacco use. Overall, the composite adolescent SU scale was correlated with the parent SU scale at the trend level. Parent overall SU and parent MH were moderately correlated, as were parent MH and parent-child relationship quality. The primary predictors in the individual SU hierarchical regression as well as the composite SU hierarchical regression were not significant beyond the control variables in predicting adolescent SU.

Conclusions

While the full model was not significant, we found several key associations between parent MH, parent SU, adolescent SU, and parent-child relationship quality. These results indicate further research should assess the implications of parent MH problems and parent SU for parent-child relationship quality and adolescent SU, and determine whether and how addressing parent MH and SU may help prevent MH and SU problems in the next generation.