فصلنامه خانواده پژوهی (Mar 2019)
Family functioning and substance abuse in adolescents: The mediating role of identity
Abstract
The ascending trend of substance abuse among the adolescents has attracted the psychologists' attention for many years. Literature has focused on the person-family interaction as the main cause of the tendency toward substance abuse. Accordingly, the present research aimed to study the relationship between family functioning and tendency toward substance abuse among the adolescents, and the mediating role of identity. 208 adolescents between 15 to 18 years old, answered the research tools including family adaptability and cohesion scale (FACES-I), Ericsson's social psychological stages inventory, and the addiction potential scale (APS). The findings revealed an inverse relation between balance, satisfaction and family interactions dimensions with addiction tendency. It was also showed that the unbalanced dimensions of family function are in direct relation with addiction tendency, expect for the rigid dimension. In line with this, an inverse relation concerning identity synthesis and a direct relation concerning identity confusion was found with substance abuse tendency. The effect of family unbalanced function with the identity confusion mediation was found to be meaningful in addiction tendency. The results state that the evaluation and the interventions which concentrate on family itself as well as its structure are probably more efficient in substance abuse prevention or reduction among the adolescents.
