Risk vs. protective factors for substance use among adolescents in Cambodia

Methods: Participants included 1943 students randomly selected from 11 schools in Battembang provincial town. The examined risk factors included depression, peer delinquency, family violence, and community violence. Protective factors included family support function and school attachment. All expected risk and protective factors were simultaneously entered in a multiple linear regression model. Results: Of the total number of participants, 2.6% had used illicit drugs, 47.4% had drunk at least a full glass of alcohol, and 9.9% had smoked at least a whole cigarette during the past three months. After adjustment, substance use remained significantly associated with risk factors including depression, peer delinquency, family-violence, victimization, and community-violence witnessing. It also remained significantly associated with some socio-demographic characteristics such as higher school grade, older age, and male gender. In contrast, none of protective factors remained significantly associated with substance use. Conclusions: This study indicates that multiple risk factors play critical roles in predicting adolescent substance use, while protective factors in both family and school domains have only limited impacts. Prevention and intervention efforts should focus more on the risk factors by targeting males during the early teenage years.