The relationship between university students' perceptions of their parents' child rearing practices and the students' usage of drugs

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to study university students' perceptions of how their parents reared them in relationship to the students' usage of drugs. The Chi-square Test was used to reflect drug user-non-user differences.

Four hypotheses were examined. They were concerned with whether availability of parental models for behavior, parental behavior and actions, child-rearing practices, and evaluations and attitudes toward their progeny will have a definite effect upon the subjects' usage of drugs. The first two, as mentioned above, had no significant effect upon the subjects' usage of drugs, the second two showed significant effects.

The results also indicated that drug users have a more negative self concept than do non-users and LSD and "speed" users have a more negative outlook on life than do marijuana users.

Also revealed was that the drug users have a large majority of their friends using drugs and approving of their usage while the majority of non-users have fewer friends using drugs and these friends do not approve of drug usage.