The Relationship Between Mental Health and Substance Abuse Among Adolescents

Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1 NHSDA

The NHSDA is the principal source of information concerning substance use in the United States. It is used to estimate prevalence, to monitor trends in drug use over time, and to evaluate factors associated with drug use. Public use data sets are currently available for 1979, 1982, 1985, 1988, and yearly for 1990 through 1996. Since 1992 the survey has been conducted by the Office of Applied Studies (OAS) within the SAMHSA.

The NHSDA is a cross-sectional survey designed to represent the non-institutionalized population of the U.S. aged 12 and older. During 1994 to 1996, the NHSDA has interviewed approximately 18,000 respondents per year. Questionnaires are administered to respondents at their place of residence. The target population represents residents of households, those living in non-institutional group quarters (e.g., shelters, rooming houses, dormitories), and civilians living on military bases. Persons not represented include those homeless who never use shelters, active military personnel, and residents of institutions (e.g., jails, hospitals). The target population is estimated to represent more than 98 percent of the total U.S. population aged 12 and older.
 

This report examines results from the combined 1994-B1, 1995, and 1996 NHSDA data files. Specific information is available for the use of alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drugs. In addition, this time period includes mental health information that has never been available in prior surveys. In 1994, the NHSDA added the YSR, a checklist developed by Achenbach (1991) that has been used extensively in studies of adolescents. This instrument provides comprehensive assessment of psychological difficulties during the adolescent period.2 The instrument makes it possible to generate a global score for overall psychosocial distress, as well as summary measures of behavioral and emotional disorders, and specific measures of depression, anxiety,  withdrawal, somatic complaints, social problems, thought problems, attention problems, delinquency, and aggressive behavior.

1.2 Purposes of this Report

This report examines the relationship between psychological functioning and substance use among adolescents. Both mental disorders and substance use frequently have their onset in adolescence. Therefore, examination of this developmental period may shed light on the relationship between mental disorders and substance use. Because the combined NHSDAs for 1994-B, 1995, and 1996 include detailed measures of psychosocial functioning and substance use, the NHSDA data can be used to examine the prevalence of specific patterns of emotional and behavioral problems and substance use among early (12 to 13), middle (14 to 15), and late (16 to 17) adolescents. Specifically, the report examines the association between substance use and measures of emotional and behavioral problems within groups defined by age and gender. It establishes rates of emotional and behavioral problems in the non-institutionalized adolescent population of the United States (see Chapter 3) and determines whether specific measures of psychological functioning are associated with substance use (see Chapter 4). The report also specifies a subset of items from the YSR that can be used to identify adolescents at high risk for substance abuse.

 

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1

In 1994, as part of a split-sample, two separate versions of the NHSDA questionnaire were administered (1994-A and 1994-B). For 1994-A, 4,372 respondents were interviewed using the 1993 questionnaire. Thus, 1994-A is comparable to the 1991-1993 NHSDA. For 1994-B, changes were implemented to improve the measurement of trends, reduce data processing time, and enrich the overall quality of the data. The revised questionnaire was used with 17,809 respondents. The editing procedures for measuring rates of use for each drug were also revised. Therefore, the 1994-B and subsequent data are not comparable with data from prior years. For more details, see Advance Report Number 18: Preliminary Estimates from the 1995 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (SAMHSA, 1996) and Development and Implementation of a New Data Collection Instrument for the 1994 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (SAMHSA, 1996b). The questionnaires and editing procedures for the 1995 and 1996 NHSDAs are similar to those of the 1994-B NHSDA.

2  Achenbach, T.M., Manual for the Youth Self-Report and 1991 Profile. Burlington, VT: University of Vermont Department of Psychiatry (1991).

This page was last updated on June 16, 2008.

SAMHSA, an agency in the Department of Health and Human Services, is the Federal Government's lead agency for improving the quality and availability of substance abuse prevention, addiction treatment, and mental health services in the United States.