Patterns of Substance Use Across the First Year of College and Associated Risk Factors

Starting college is a major life transition. This study aims to characterize patterns of substance use across a variety of substances across the first year of college and identify associated factors. 

We used data from the first cohort (N = 2056, 1240 females) of the “Spit for Science” sample, a study of incoming freshmen at a large urban university. Latent transition analysis was applied to alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, and other illicit drug uses measured at the beginning of the fall semester and midway through the spring semester. Covariates across multiple domains – including personality, drinking motivations and expectancy, high school delinquency, peer deviance, stressful events, and symptoms of depression and anxiety – were included to predict the patterns of substance use and transitions between patterns across the first year. 

At both the fall and spring semesters, we identified three subgroups of participants with patterns of substance use characterized as: (1) use of all four substances; (2) alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis use; and (3) overall low substance use. Patterns of substance use were highly stable across the first year of college: most students maintained their class membership from fall to spring, with just 7% of participants in the initial low substance users transitioning to spring alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis users. Most of the included covariates were predictive of the initial pattern of use, but covariates related to experiences across the first year of college were more predictive of the transition from the low to alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis user groups. 

Our results suggest that while there is an overall increase in alcohol use across all students, college students largely maintain their patterns of substance use across the first year. Risk factors experienced during the first year may be effective targets for preventing increases in substance use.

Below:  Item response profiles from the initial fall classes showing the proportion of each class reporting ever use of each substance

Below:  Item response profiles from the spring classes showing the proportion of each class reporting ever use of each substance

Full article at:  http://goo.gl/6KCGI2

By: Seung Bin Cho,1,* Danielle C. Llaneza,1 Amy E. Adkins,1 Megan Cooke,3 Kenneth S. Kendler,3 Shaunna L. Clark,4,†and Danielle M. Dick1,2,5,*†

1Department of African American Studies, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA

2Department of Psychology, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA

3Department of Psychiatry, Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA

4Department of Pharmacotherapy and Outcome Science, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA

5Department of Human and Molecular Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA

¹Department of African American Studies, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA

²Department of Psychology, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA

³Department of Psychiatry, Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA

⁴Department of Pharmacotherapy and Outcome Science, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA

⁵Department of Human and Molecular Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA

Edited by: Guohua Xia, University of California Davis, USA

Reviewed by: Giovanni Martinotti, University G. d’Annunzio, Italy; Kesong Hu, Cornell University, USA

*Correspondence: Seung Bin Cho, Email: ude.ucv@ohcbs; Danielle M. Dick, Email: ude.ucv@kcidd

^†These authors share supervising authorship.

Specialty section: This article was submitted to Addictive Disorders and Behavioral Dyscontrol, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry

 

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