Parental Alcohol Use and Adolescent Anger, Depression, Anxiety, and Substance Abuse

Parental alcohol use has been associated with an elevated risk of developing psychological and behavioral problems during childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. Historically, parental alcohol use and its effect upon children have been primarily studied within chemical dependency clinical environments; however, a majority of parents who consume alcohol have not obtained formal substance use diagnoses and are not in treatment programs. This quantitative research study examined how exposure to parental alcohol use and/or abuse may psychologically impact adolescents utilizing data not obtained From clinical environments. A bivariate correlation was conducted to examine the relationship between non-diagnosed parental alcohol use and adolescent anger, depression, and anxiety. Furthermore, a stepwise regression was conducted to examine the relationship between adolescent anger, depression, anxiety, and adolescent substance abuse. Study participants included adolescents (N=300) ranging in age from 14 to 19 years enrolled in secondary public education grades 9 through 12 recruited from a large suburban school. Data was obtained from archived Compu-15 Teen Alcohol/Drug Assessments administered between 1999 through 2007. Results of this study found a statistically significant relationship between non-diagnosed parental alcohol use and adolescent anger (r = 0.16, p< 0.01). No statistically significant relationships were identified between parental alcohol use and adolescent depression or anxiety. Adolescent anger, depression, and anxiety accounted for 26.6% of the combined variance in adolescent substance abuse. In terms of magnitude, the strength of the relationship between adolescent depression and adolescent substance abuse had the highest magnitude, beta=0.22, followed by anxiety, beta=0.20, and anger, beta=0.18. Recommendations for future research include examining the relationship between preadolescent versus adolescent depression, anxiety, anger, and non-diagnosed parental alcohol use. Additionally, further investigating the relationship between adolescent anger and non-diagnosed parental alcohol use to determine if this study's statistically significant findings are not just a result of normal adolescent anger directed towards parents. Furthermore, research recommendations include conducting a structural equation model investigating specific factors related to adolescent anger, depression, and anxiety that may be predictive of adolescent substance abuse.