Although numerous studies have established a link between substance use and adult partner violence, little research has examined the relationship during adolescence and most extant research has not examined multiple substance use types. The current study used hierarchical growth modeling to simultaneously examine proximal (between-person) and time-varying (within-person) relations between cigarette, alcohol, marijuana and hard drug use and physical dating aggression across grades 8 through 12 while controlling for demographic covariates and shared risk factors. Proximal effects of marijuana use on dating aggression were found for girls and proximal effects of hard drug use on dating aggression were found for boys. Time-varying effects were found for alcohol for both boys and girls and for hard drug use for boys only. Overall, findings suggest that alcohol, marijuana and hard drug use predict whether and when adolescents engage in dating aggression and should be targeted by prevention interventions.
Adolescent dating aggression (DA) is a prevalent national problem (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2012) that can result in devastating consequences including injury, depression, and suicidal ideation (Exner-Cortens et al., 2013 and O'Leary et al., 2008). Research generally suggests that substance use is an important risk factor associated with adolescent (e.g., Epstein-Ngo et al., 2013, Reyes et al., 2011, Rivera-Rivera et al., 2007, Rothman et al., 2010 and Temple et al., 2013) and adult partner violence (Moore et al., 2008, Shorey et al., 2011 and Smith et al., 2012). However, key methodological limitations of previous research constrain interpretation and generalizability of these findings. In particular, most studies of associations between substance use and DA, have focused exclusively on a single type of substance use (e.g., alcohol use; Reyes et al. 2011), combined substance use indicators into a global construct (e.g., Schnurr & Lohman, 2008), or used analytic approaches that do not account for correlations among different substance use behaviors (e.g., Rothman et al., 2010). In all these cases, examination of the unique effects of multiple different substance use behaviors in relation to dating or partner aggression is precluded. More generally, little longitudinal research has examined relations between substance use and DA over the course of adolescence, a critical developmental period when patterns of substance use and relationship conflict may initiate and become established.
The few studies that have examined unique associations among multiple distinct substance use behaviors and adolescent DA suggest that associations may depend on substance use type and may differ for boys and girls, although findings are inconsistent. For example, using daily calendar-based analyses, Epstein-Ngo et al. (2013) found that alcohol, but not marijuana or sedative/opiate use, was associated with higher rates of severe DA in a sample of high risk urban girls. Using cross-sectional data, Rivera-Rivera et al. (2007) found an association between “illegal” drug use (marijuana and other types of illicit substance use combined) and DA among both boys and girls, whereas alcohol use was associated with DA only among girls. Using longitudinal data, Temple et al. (2013) found that hard drug and alcohol use each uniquely predicted DA among boys and girls, but marijuana use did not. In contrast, also using longitudinal data, Foshee, Reyes, and Ennett (2010) found that marijuana use predicted onset of DA among girls, but neither cigarette nor alcohol use was associated with DA onset among either boys or girls.
Taken together, these findings suggest that there may be heterogeneity in the relationship between different substance use types and DA that may not be detected in studies that group different substance use behaviors into a global construct and/or fail to account for potential gender differences in relationships. Furthermore, some research suggests that associations between substance use and DA may vary over time and/or depend on whether one is examining whether substance use predicts who is at risk for DA (between-person effects) and/or whether substance use predicts when DA risk is elevated (within-person effects; Hussong et al., 2010 and Reyes et al., 2011). Very few studies of relations between substance use and DA have used analytic approaches designed to disentangle these different effects or examine variability in associations over time, possibly contributing to the inconsistent findings described above.
To our knowledge this is the first study to simultaneously examine proximal and time-varying effects of different types of adolescent substance use behaviors to determine both who is at risk overall for DA and whether risk is elevated during time points when substance use is elevated. As such, it informs understanding of the complex relationships between substance use and adolescent DA. Results overall confirm the importance of heavy alcohol, marijuana, and hard drug use as unique risk factors associated with increased risk for DA and suggest that evaluations of adolescent substance use prevention programs should assess potential effects on dating abuse outcomes. In order to further inform intervention development, future research should build on the current study to replicate findings and explore the casual mechanisms that account for between and within-person relations between substance use and DA, as well as potential moderators of these relations. Our findings suggest there may be multiple distinct pathways linking different substance use behaviors to DA and that these mechanisms may differ for boys and girls. A better understanding of these linkages could contribute to determining whether and how interventions designed to prevent or reduce substance-use related DA should be tailored to address substance- and/or sex-specific risk/protective factors.
