Substance use in Spanish adolescents: The relationship between depression and social support seeking

摘要

The lack of family or social support and social circles arerisk factors for the onset of substance use and teendepression. In turn, depression is a risk factor forsubstance consumption itself. Although there is evidenceon the relationship between coping strategies andsubstance abuse, there are few data on adolescents. Thepresent study aimed to analyze the relationship betweencoping based on social support and depression, withreference to tobacco, alcohol, and cannabis consumptionin a sample of Spanish adolescents. Various measureswere administered to 1,522 adolescent students in theprovince of Alicante. The results showed a significantrelationship between social support, depression, andconsumption of tobacco and alcohol, and a marginallysignificant relationship with the frequency of tobaccoconsumption. Although the models were significant,there was not an interaction effect of coping anddepression, due to the simple effects of both thevariables, which may have accounted for the results. Thelack of interaction may be due to previous studiesexamine the relationship between coping and stress,finding the same effect with depression.