Psychiatric, Family, and Ethnicity-Related Factors That Can Impact Treatment Utilization Among Hispanic Substance Abusing Adolescents

Abstract

SUMMARYThere is great significance to improving our understanding of predictors of treatment utilization among Hispanic substance abusing youth. One hundred and ten Hispanic substance abusing adolescents and their parents participated in a study of treatment utilization. Analyses showed that adolescents with lower numbers of externalizing disorders (χ 2 = 4.18, df = 1, p < .05) and parents with better parenting strategies (χ 2 = 8.73, df = 2, p < .05), predicted overall treatment utilization (residential + outpatient). Better parenting practices and higher parental years in the U.S. predicted more utilization of outpatient services and lower parenting stress predicted more utilization of residential services. Without specialized engagement strategies, adolescents and families most in need may be the least likely to engage in recommended treatment.

Parental incarceration during childhood and later delinquent outcomes among Puerto Rican adolescents and young adults in two contexts.

“…Participants also responded to a 16-item cultural stress scale, which was based on the Hispanic Stress Inventory (HSI; Cervantes, Padilla, & Salgado de Snyder, 1990) and focused on common stressors for Latino populations. For example, one item asked youth whether they “have found it difficult to mix Puerto Rican/Latino culture and American culture.” Although the HSI was initially developed for adults, it has been previously used with adolescent samples and demonstrated both internal consistency and test-retest reliability (Cervantes, Duenas, Valdez, & Kaplan, 2006; Santisteban, Dillon, Mena, Estrada, & Vaughan, 2005). Available responses for all items on this scale were yes or no, and scores were calculated by averaging all nonmissing items; therefore, participant scores ranged from 0 to 1.…”

Hispanic Adolescents With Severe Substance Abuse Issues: Parental Involvement, Acculturation-Related Factors and Attachment

“…The adolescent and parent(s) who agreed to participate completed an assessment process that took approximately 3 hours; they were paid $40 for their participation, and were also asked to complete a 10-minute follow-up interview by phone about six weeks post discharge from the facility. Seventy four percent of the families approached agreed to participate in the project (Santisteban, et al, 2005). …”

“…An intake form, created specifically for the original study, was used to collect demographic information including the family's ethnicity, family composition, household income, employment status, parent's marital status, parent's educational status, language of preference, years in the United States, and age of on-set of drug use (Santisteban, et al, 2005).…”

“…This variable was measured in the parent study (Santisteban et al, 2005) using the Parental Involvement with School scale (Pantin, unpublished, 1996), an adaptation by the Center for Family Studies (CFS) in Miami, Florida, of an earlier scale (Eccles & Harold, 1993) …”

“…Alphas for the sample used in the parent study ranged from α = 0.75 to α = 0.88 (Santisteban et al, 2005). Cronbach's alpha for the current sample was α = 0.85 for the mother version.…”