Lateishah Schultz, “Parental Substance Use History Is Linked with Greater Internalizing Symptoms During Late Childhood to Early Adolescence”
Mentor: Krista Lisdahl, Psychology
Poster #181
Parental substance use (SU) history has been linked with greater rates of anxiety and depression during adolescence. Less is known about how levels of parental SU history relate to early adolescent mental health outcomes across time. The current study investigated the longitudinal relationships between parental SU history (SUHx) and internalizing symptomatology during late childhood to early adolescence using the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study cohort. Parent report on the Family History Questionnaire was used to measure parental history of alcohol and drug use at baseline. Parental SUHx was transformed into a 3-level variable to compare differences in history (1 vs 2 vs no SU history). Parent report on The Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and youth report on the Brief Problem Monitoring (BPM) survey were used to assess youth internalizing symptoms from baseline to Year-3 follow-up. Separate linear mixed effect models were used to measure the relationship between parental SUHx and youth internalizing symptoms while controlling for general demographics, parental history of anxiety/depression, and random effects. Compared to youth with no parental SUHx, youth with 1(b=.92, p=001) and 2(b=1.90, p=.002) parents with SUHx reported greater CBCL internalizing symptoms. Compared to those with no parental SUHx at baseline, those with 1 parent with SUHx reported fewer symptoms at Year-1 (p=.01). On the BPM, youth with 1 parent with SUHx reported greater internalizing symptoms (b=.26, p<.001); no significant differences were observed with those with 2 parents with SUHx (p=.14). At Year-3, youth with 1 parent with SUHx reported greater internalizing symptoms compared to those with no parental SUHx (b=.16, p=0.06). Findings suggest that having one parent with a history of substance use problems was linked with increased internalizing symptoms during late childhood and early adolescence. Continued research is necessary to understand mental health in at-risk youth to identify optimal windows for intervention.