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Cigarette smoking in the adolescent children of drug-abusing fathers.

Brook DW, Brook JS, Rubenstone E, Zhang C, Gerochi C

Department of Psychiatry, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY 10016, USA. david.brook@med.nyu.edu

OBJECTIVE: This study examined the longitudinal predictors of cigarette smoking in a sample of at-risk adolescents whose fathers were drug abusers (N = 296). METHODS: At time 1, structured interviews were administered, separately and in private, to male and female youth (X age = 16.3) and their fathers; adolescents were reinterviewed approximately 1 year later (at time 2). Structural equation modeling was used to examine the interrelationship of time 1 paternal tobacco and illicit drug use, father-child relations, adolescent psychological adjustment, and peer group factors and adolescent smoking at time 2. A supplementary analysis assessed the same model with control on the adolescent's age, gender, frequency of contact with the father, and the father's treatment status. RESULTS: The structural equation model showed a mediational pathway linking paternal tobacco and drug use to a weak and conflictual father-child relationship, which was associated with greater adolescent maladjustment, which in turn was related to deviant peer affiliations, which predicted adolescent smoking at time 2. There was also a direct path from paternal tobacco and drug use to adolescent time 2 smoking. The supplementary analysis found no significant differences between the models with and without control. CONCLUSIONS: Findings provide evidence of the mechanisms that underlie the association between paternal drug use characteristics and smoking in the adolescent child. Clinical implications suggest the importance of the father-child relationship to smoking prevention programs for at-risk youth.

Published 4 April 2006 in Pediatrics, 117(4): 1339-47.
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