title: Are the effects of early pubertal timing on the initiation of weekly alcohol use mediated by peers and/or parents? A longitudinal study.
abstract: We investigated whether the link between early pubertal timing and initiation of weekly alcohol use is mediated by changes in perceived parental alcohol-specific rule setting and changes in perceived proportion of drinkers in the peer group. Longitudinal data including 3 annual waves were used to estimate the hazard for adolescents to initiate drinking alcohol using Cox proportional hazard structural equation models in 1,286 Dutch adolescents (50.2% boys) 13-14 years old at baseline in 2008. Early pubertal timing increased the risk to initiate weekly alcohol use. However, this risk was entirely mediated by a large increase in the perceived proportion of drinkers in the peer group and a large decrease in the frequency of perceived alcohol-specific rules for early pubertal timers within a period of 1 year. There is no direct risk for early pubertal timers to initiate weekly drinking per se but an indirect one via changes in their social environments, that is, a large increase in the perceived proportion of drinkers in their peer group and parents becoming more lenient in their alcohol-specific rule setting. It is important to motivate parents not to relax their alcohol-specific rule setting over time, particularly parents of early pubertal timers.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Promotion, School for Public Health and Primary Care (CAPHRI), Maastricht University, The Netherlands. Karen.offermans@maastrichtuniversity.nl
authors.forename: Karen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Schelleman-Offermans
authors.forename: Ronald A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Knibbe
authors.forename: Emmanuel
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kuntsche
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D009042:Motivation; D016487:Parenting / Q000523:psychology; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D010379:Peer Group; D011627:Puberty / Q000523:psychology*; D012931:Social Environment