Journal of Addiction Research & Therapy
Open Access

Research Article

Longitudinal Associations among Impulsivity, Friend Substance Use, and Adolescent Substance Use

¹Research Coordinator, Department of Psychology, Virginia Tech, VA, USA

²Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Virginia Tech, VA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Julee Farley
Research Coordinator
Virginia Tech Psychology
109 Williams Hall Blacksburg
VA, USA
Tel: 540 231 8747
E-mail: farleyjp@vt.edu

Received date: March 13, 2015; Accepted date: April 19, 2015; Published date: May 08, 2015

Citation: Farley JP, Kim-Spoon J (2015) Longitudinal Associations among Impulsivity, Friend Substance Use, and Adolescent Substance Use. J Addict Res Ther 6:220. doi:10.4172/2155-6105.1000220

Copyright: ©2015 Farley JP, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Adolescent substance use is an increasing problem in the United States, and some researchers posit a bidirectional relation between adolescent substance use and the personality trait of impulsivity (e.g., Quinn, Stappenbeck, & Fromme, 2011). Friend substance use has been shown to be a powerful predictor of adolescent substance use, with prior research suggesting a bidirectional relation between adolescent substance use and friend substance use (e.g., Simons-Morton & Chen, 2006). Extant literature has not tested the bidirectional relation between adolescent substance use and impulsivity with longitudinal data nor has it examined this relation while considering the bidirectional relation with the social context factor of friend substance use. Using three waves of longitudinal data, we tested if there was a bidirectional relation between adolescent substance use and impulsivity while also examining the influences of friend substance use. Participants were 131 adolescents (male = 55%, mean age = 13 years at Wave 1). We tested nested models and examined whether adding equality constraints degraded the model fit using a Wald test. Results of structural equation modeling indicated that, after controlling for baseline levels of substance use, impulsivity predicted adolescent and friend substance use over time, whereas adolescent and friend substance use did not predict impulsivity. Adolescents with substance using friends were likely to increase their own substance use. The findings imply that aiming at both improving adolescents’ ability to regulate impulsivity and deterring associations with friends who are using substances is essential for prevention and intervention efforts against substance use development in adolescents.

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