RESEARCH ARTICLE


The Role of Attitudes, Family, Peer and School on Alcohol Use, Rule Breaking and Aggressive Behavior in Hispanic Delinquent Adolescents



David Cordova*, Shi Huang, Margaret Arzon, Derek Freitas, Shandey Malcolm, Guillermo Prado
Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, 1475 Northwest, 12th Avenue, Miami, FL 33136, USA.

Article Information


Identifiers and Pagination:

Year: 2011
Volume: 4
First Page: 38
Last Page: 45
Publisher Id: TOFAMSJ-4-38
DOI: 10.2174/1874922401104010038

Article History:

Received Date: 8/4/2011
Revision Received Date: 23/6/2011
Acceptance Date: 25/6/2011
Electronic publication date: 14/10/2011
Collection year: 2011

© 2011 Cordova et al;

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, 1475 Northwest, 12th Avenue, Miami, FL 33136, USA.


Abstract

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine ecodevelopmental risk factors associated with alcohol uses, rule breaking and aggressive behaviors among Hispanic delinquent adolescents. Specifically, this study tests the effect of attitudes, family, peer, and school bonding on alcohol use, rule breaking and aggressive behaviors in Hispanic delinquent youth.

Methods: A sample of 235 heterogeneous Hispanic delinquent adolescents was recruited through referrals from the Miami-Dade County's Department of Juvenile Services and from the Miami-Dade County Public School system. Logistic regression methods were utilized to examine the independent effect of each risk factor (attitudes, family, peer, school) and to determine the extent to which these factors are associated with alcohol use, rule breaking and aggressive behaviors. Results: Family functioning was inversely and significantly related to past 90-day alcohol use in univariate regression (β = -.24, p = .035) but was not significant in multiple regression (β = -0.09, p = .556). Peer alcohol use (β = 2.02, p<0.001) and poor alcohol attitudes (β =0.59, p=0.006) were positively and significantly related to past 90-day alcohol use in the final model. Poor alcohol attitudes, family functioning, peer alcohol use, and school bonding were all significantly related to both rule breaking and aggressive behaviors in the final model.

Conclusions: Findings highlight the importance of identifying risk factors at multiple levels to prevent/reduce alcohol use, rule breaking and aggressive behaviors among Hispanic delinquent youth.

Keywords: Hispanic, adolescent, delinquency, alcohol, aggression, ecodevelopmental.