10:49 a.m., Oct. 14, 2009----The Adolescent Adjustment Project (AAP), a University of Delaware research endeavor to determine the links between parental alcoholism and child substance abuse, has launched a new Web site.

THIS STORY

E-mail

Print

Twitter

In the spring of 2006, Christine Ohannessian, associate professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies and principal investigator of the AAP, began a longitudinal study in which she and her team of researchers, including both graduate and undergraduate students at UD, have followed a group of adolescents into young adulthood in order to look for links between adult alcoholism and child substance abuse.

Ohannessian said the primary functions of the Web site are to keep in touch with the project's participants and let them see how they have contributed to the project.

The question the study is trying to answer, Ohannessian said, is “Why do some children of alcoholic parents turn out to be well adjusted, whereas others do not?”

To answer this question, Ohannessian and her team have been determining whether characteristics of the individual (e.g., coping abilities, self-worth) and/or the context (e.g., family relationships, peer relationships, involvement in extracurricular activities) moderate the relationship between parental alcoholism and adolescent adjustment.

A broader goal of the project is to look at the relationship between family problems due to substance use and adolescent adjustment and the variables that affect that relationship, she said.

The sample includes more than 1,100 adolescents and their parents. Families began participating when the adolescents were in 9th or 10th grade, and the researchers have followed up with each adolescent annually for the past four years.

By following the same individuals, Ohannessian and her team are able to examine the adjustment of young people before many psychological and substance use problems become apparent, and they can assess the psychosocial variables that relate to changes in adolescent adjustment as they occur.

Ohannessian said she hopes that she will be able to continue this project for years to come. The students are now entering early adulthood and are in 12th grade or entering college, ages that are considered a high-risk period for substance use.

“The examination of this age group is critical since adolescence is the time when both the initiation of substance use and a dramatic rise in the prevalence of psychological problems occurs.” she said.

So far, Ohannessian said the findings to date are consistent with the broader aims of the study. Moreover, they have important implications for the prevention of adolescent problem behaviors, particularly in children of alcoholic parents. Ohannessian said she hopes the information gathered through the AAP will be used in prevention programs for adolescents.

Among the interesting results revealed in the study, an analysis based on Year One data showed that playing video games protected adolescent boys who had alcoholic parents from developing psychological problems, while the effect was not observed for girls.

In a separate study examining Year Two data, open communication between adolescents and their parents was found to moderate the relationship between parental alcoholism and psychological adjustment for girls. There was also an inverse relationship between the amount of communication between girls and fathers with high levels of problem drinking and the girls' levels of depression - that is, more open communication with their fathers led to lower levels of depression in adolescent girls. This pattern was not found for boys.

The AAP was funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health -- National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

Article by Jon Bleiweis