Violent Behavior and Substance Use Among Adolescents-Results from the National Adolescent School-based Health Survey (PeNSE)

The objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between violent behavior practice and substance use from a large national representative sample of Brazilian adolescents. More specifically, the study examines whether past month alcohol, nicotine, and illicit substance use influences the practice of violent behaviors in this population. Data for the present study were derived from the 2015 National Adolescent School-based Health Survey (PeNSE). The sample consisted of 52,782 girls and 49,290 boys with a mean age of 14.28 +/- 1.03 (SD) years old enrolled in the 9th grade of elementary school. To perform the analysis, the outcome, the independent variables, and the confounders were transformed into dichotomous variables. Nicotine, alcohol, and illicit drug (cannabis, cocaine, crack, ecstasy, or others) use were the independent variables studied. All analyses were conducted at the software Stata 13.0. Results are presented with odds ratios and coefficient values and the 95% confidence interval. Adjusted regression model showed that being male (aOR: 1.71; 95% CI: 1.61-1.82), past month nicotine use (aOR: 1.71; 95% CI 1.57-1.86), past month alcohol use (aOR: 1.22; 95% CI: 1.15-1.30), and past month illicit drugs use (aOR: 1.82; 95% CI: 1.60-2.07) were all found to increase the chances of having a violent behavior. There is an association of violent behavior practice and past month substance use among adolescents.