Online Program

287709
Influence of sensation-seeking and parental and peer influences in early adolescence on risk involvement through middle adolescence: A structural equation modeling analysis


Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Bo Wang, PhD, Department of Family Medicine and Public Health Sciences, Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, MI
Lynette Deveaux, BA, Office of HIV/AIDS, Bahamian Ministry of Health, Nassau, Bahamas
Sonja Lunn, MBBS, Office of HIV/AIDS, Bahamas Ministry of Health, Nassau, Bahamas
Xiaoming Li, PhD, Department of Pediatrics, Pediatric Prevention Research Center, Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, MI
Bonita Stanton, MD, Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, MI
Background: Understanding the relationships between individual factors including sensation-seeking, family, and social factors that influence adolescent risk involvement will inform the development of more effective adolescent risk reduction interventions. Methods: Using longitudinal data from 543 grade-six students followed over three years, we simultaneously examined the relationships between youth and parental sensation seeking, peer influence, parental monitoring and youth risk involvement in early and middle adolescence using structural equation modeling. Results: Youth sensation seeking in grade six contributed to risk involvement in early adolescence (grades six and seven) indirectly through increased peer risk influence and decreased parental monitoring but did not have a direct contribution. It contributed both directly and indirectly to risk involvement in middle adolescence (grades eight and nine). Parent sensation seeking at baseline was positively associated with peer risk influence and negatively associated with parental monitoring although it had no direct effect on adolescent risk involvement. Increased peer risk influence demonstrated relatively greater contribution to risk involvement than did decreased parental monitoring. In addition, parental monitoring buffers negative peer influence on adolescent risk involvement. Conclusion: The present study provides a more complete understanding of the interplay between individual and social factors influencing risk behavior. Future adolescent risk reduction interventions should teach parents effective monitoring skills and provide adolescent normative feedbacks about adolescent risk behaviors in addition to teaching them refusal skills for resisting peer pressure. Intervention approaches may need to vary among families in which parents and/or youth have high propensities towards sensation seeking.

Learning Areas:

Administer health education strategies, interventions and programs
Advocacy for health and health education
Public health or related education
Public health or related research
Social and behavioral sciences

Learning Objectives:
Describe the relationships between individual, family, and social factors that influence adolescent risk involvement; Discuss the relationships between youth sensation seeking, parent sensation seeking, peer risk influence and parental monitoring; Explain application of structural equation modeling in social science research.

Keyword(s): Risk Behavior, Adolescents

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have conducted research in the area of adolescent risk behaviors and HIV prevention for over 10 years. I fully participated in this project and performed statistical analysis.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.