This application for a small grant proposes to perform secondary data analyses on a longitudinal dataset from a study the goal of which was to establish the prevalence and incidence of symptoms of substance abuse, depression, and anxiety within an American Indian adolescent population. To date, few empirically-based studies of American Indian adolescents have been published which shed light on the relationship among such symptoms and other mediating phenomena such as stress, coping, mastery and social support. The data to be analyzed were obtained by surveying students in a boarding school (Grades 9-12) operated by the Cherokee Nation in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. A self-report questionnaire was administered twice during the school year, a process which will be repeated each year for the next four years. Sections in the questionnaire measured substance use, , depression (CES-D), anxiety, stressful life events, ways of coping, relationships with friends and family, suicidal thinking, mastery/control, and self-concept. The Crowne-Marlowe Scale was used to assess socially desirable response tendency. The.specific aims of the secondary analyses are: 1) to assess the internal validity and internal consistency of self-report measures for symptoms of substance abuse, depression, and anxiety; 2) to compare these psychological dimensions identified for the study sample with those appearing in.the literature for other relevant populations; 3) to examine the variation' by age, sex, and over time of self-report measures for substance abuse, depression, and anxiety and the factors associated with the stability of those measures; and 4) to compare response patterns of students on selected scales--specifically the stressful life events, ways of coping, suicidal thinking and behavior, personal control, and possible selves measures--across levels of substance use, depression, and anxiety. The results of these secondary analyses will constitute a significant increase in our current understanding of the. measures in question as they are applied to adolescent Indians and of the substantive experiences tapped by them.

R03AA008211

1989-09-01

1991-08-31