Investigation of substance use among late adolescents in terms of its relationship with parental acceptance rejection, self-control, anger and peer deviance

Substance use is a multifaceted psychosocial problem resulting from interaction among several different level factors. The current thesis aimed to examine substance use problem among late adolescents in terms of its relationship with parental acceptance-rejection, self-control, anger, and peer deviance. Data were collected from 160 male using substances aged between 18-25 via using Demographic Information Form, Adult Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire, Brief Self-Control Scale, Trait Anger-Anger Expression Inventory, Peer Deviance Scale, Drug Use Disorders Identification Test, University Form of Risk Behaviors Scale. Two separate one-way Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) and multiple regression analyses were conducted. According to the results, high severity and low severity substance use group differed significantly in terms of maternal hostility, maternal undifferentiated rejection, self-control, trait anger, anger control, anger-out expression, and peer deviance. Nevertheless, no significant group differences were observed in terms of total paternal rejection score and its sub-dimensions, maternal rejection total score, maternal warmth, maternal neglect, and anger-in expression. By contrast, the clinical group and non-clinical group showed significant differences in paternal hostility, paternal undifferentiated rejection, maternal hostility, maternal undifferentiated rejection, trait anger, anger-out expression, and peer deviance, while there were no significant differences in terms of paternal rejection total score, paternal warmth, paternal neglect, maternal rejection total score, maternal warmth, maternal neglect, self-control and anger-in expression. In addition, paternal undifferentiated rejection and peer deviation were found to significantly predict late adolescents' substance use problem. Obtained results were discussed in relation to the relevant literature, and clinical implications and limitations were presented.