Parental practices and their association with alcohol and cannabis use among adolescents in Chile

Background: Alcohol and cannabis use are common among adolescents in Chile. The aim of the present research was to assess the relationship of perceived parenting practices with alcohol and cannabis use of adolescents in a Latin American context.
Methods: We adapted and implemented the Planet Youth model of substance use prevention in Chile, which included surveys of 10th grade students from six municipalities in the metropolitan region of Santiago. We explored the reliability and factorial structure of the parenting scale with 16 items, which forms part of the survey. The association of different dimensions of parenting with alcohol and cannabis use in adolescents was assessed using multilevel regression models.
Results: N=7538 tenth grade students nested in 118 schools were included in the study. The 16 item scale of parenting practices showed good internal consistency (Omega total = 0.84), and 3 factors, representing the relationship with parents, norms and monitoring, and acquaintance of the parents with the friends. Total scores of parenting and scores in all three subscales were associated with lower lifetime and past-month alcohol use, drunkenness and lifetime cannabis use. This inverse association was stronger in adolescents with more severe cannabis use. Interactions between parenting and gender show a significantly stronger effect of parenting practices on alcohol and cannabis use in girls.
Conclusion: Different types of parenting practices were associated with lower prevalence of adolescent alcohol and cannabis use. Fomenting parenting practices has the potential to prevent adolescent substance use in Chile.