Research & Resources

Parental Monitoring, Family Conflict, and Adolescent Alcohol Use: A Longitudinal Latent Class Analysis

Researchers examined relationships among parental monitoring, family conflict, and subgroups of adolescent alcohol use. They collected data from 4,067 questionnaires that adolescents completed for each semester for seven semesters, beginning in spring of their freshman year of high school until spring of their senior year. The data showed that the majority of adolescents increased their alcohol use over time. Non-drinkers were most likely to be African American, while increasing-use drinkers were more likely to be Mexican American. Adolescents who received less maternal monitoring and experienced more family conflict were more likely to demonstrate moderate alcohol use, compared to nonuse. Researchers highlighted the importance of encouraging parental monitoring and decreasing family conflict to reduce the likelihood of adolescent alcohol use throughout high school.

This paper, “Parental monitoring, family conflict, and adolescent alcohol use: A longitudinal latent class analysis,” was funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and published in the Journal of family psychology.

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