title: A comparison of drug involvement between runaways and school youths.
abstract: Problems related to homeless/runaway youths have received increased attention in recent years. Homeless/runaway youths manifest many problems in addition to being absent from home and without supervision of a parent or guardian. The purpose of the study was to determine drug use and abuse patterns of homeless/runaway youths and to compare those patterns, along with attitudes toward selected illicit behaviors, with similar data collected from adolescents in school. Data were collected from persons (n = 253) in homeless/runaway shelters in the southeast United States. Comparisons made with data from other studies of runaways and of youths in school indicate that drug use and abuse is two-three times more prevalent for runaways than with the school youths. Runaways' attitudes toward selected illicit behaviors are more tolerant than those of school youths. Intervention programs for runaway/homeless youths should reflect an understanding of the complexity of the psycho-social and behavioral history of the clients which is much different than that of those who are in school.
authors.affiliation: University of Georgia, Athens.
authors.forename: S W
authors.initials: SW
authors.lastname: Fors
authors.forename: D G
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Rojek
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D003625:Data Collection; D006703:Ill-Housed Persons; D006801:Humans; D013287:Illicit Drugs / Q000009:adverse effects; D000297:Psychology, Adolescent; D012419:Runaway Behavior; D013334:Students; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000523:psychology*
chemical_list: D013287:Illicit Drugs