THE EFFECT OF HOME-ENVIRONMENT ON ADOLESCENT SUBSTANCE USE AND DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS

We used data from the screening phase and first two waves of a panel s tudy to compare the home environments of families with a substance-abu sing parent families with a depressed parent, and families in a compar ison group. We diagnosed substance use disorder and affective disorder by administering the Structural Clinical Interview for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (third edition, revised) t o each participating parent. The data suggest that families in which p arents display a substance use disorder are very similar to those in w hich parents suffer from affective disorder, in terms of negative life events and lower family cohesion. The results of structural equation modeling indicate that parental substance use disorder and parental af fective disorder influence adolescent substance use and depressive sym ptoms. In addition, parental substance use disorder has a direct influ ence on adolescent substance use at the time the first-wave data were collected, but this effect does not persist over time.