Maternal Attitudes, Irritability, Problem Solving Skills and Decision Making in Adolescents with Substance Use: Case-control Study

Objective: Multiple risk factors affect the emergence of substance use disorders among adolescents and their families. To the best of our knowledge, the effects of irritability, problem solving, decision making skills and maternal attitudes on the severity of the substance use have not been evaluated on the same population. We aimed to evaluate the presence and the effects all of these variables on the severity of substance dependence. Method: The study included 40 adolescents, between 14 and 17 years of age, consulting the Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Diseases outpatient clinics with complaints of substance use and 40 age and gender matched healthy controls. The diagnoses were based on the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria. Both groups completed a sociodemographic questionnaire, the Parent Attitude Research Instrument (PARI), the Adolescent Decision Making Questionnaire (ADMOJ, the Problem-Solving Inventory (PSI) and the DSM-5 Level 2 Irritability Scale. The patient group were also tested on the Addiction Profile Index for Adolescents (API-AF). Results: Problem solving skills scores of the patients were lower and the scores on the irritability scale completed by the patients and their parents were higher as compared to the control group. Complacency (indifference) in decision-making predicted the severity of the addiction. As the complacency in decision-making increased, the severity of addiction also increased. Conclusion: Our results indicated that problem solving and decision-making skills and irritability levels of the adolescents together with the family attitudes, affect substance use disorder in adolescence. These variables should be considered in preventive and therapeutic approaches.