Parents and peers: understanding direct and indirect effects on adolescent marijuana use

• Author / Creator

  Medori, Joy Christine

• To better understand the relationship of parent and peer factors in contributing to adolescent marijuana use, the present study investigated the direct and indirect effects of perceived parental knowledge and best friend drug use on adolescent marijuana use. Survey responses from 2552 grade 10, 11, and 12 students were used to explore these relationships. As expected, perceived parental knowledge had significant negative relationships with marijuana use and best friend use and best friend use had a significant positive relationship with marijuana use. As expected, males reported more marijuana use and more best friend use than did females. Yet females reported higher levels of perceived parental knowledge than males. Logistic regression revealed that best friend use partially mediated the relationship between perceived parental knowledge and marijuana use. Contrary to expectations, the mediation relationship was the same for males and females. Implications of the findings for the mediation model are discussed.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Marijuana
  • Peers
  • Knowledge
  • Adolescents

• Graduation date

  Spring 2011

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Science

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R35928

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.