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Drug use and stress: Testing a coping model in an urban African‐American sample
Author(s) -
Brunswick Ann F.,
Lewis Carla S.,
Messeri Peter A.
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.585
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 1520-6629
pISSN - 0090-4392
DOI - 10.1002/1520-6629(199204)20:2<148::aid-jcop2290200205>3.0.co;2-d
Subject(s) - unemployment , stressor , distress , coping (psychology) , psychological distress , psychology , sample (material) , clinical psychology , drug , demography , psychiatry , mental health , economics , chemistry , chromatography , sociology , economic growth
Opposing functions have been attributed to substance use — as causal of distress and as buffering agent to reduce distress. These opposing roles were modeled with longitudinal data from an urban community sample of African Americans. With enduring unemployment formulated as the predictor stressor, three levels of drug use were tested for direct versus multiplicative effects on strain. Findings did not support the buffering or stress‐relief hypothesis. Further, strongly gender‐differentiated processes appeared in the unemployment‐drug‐distress relationship. For men, unemployment strain was increased under the condition of moderate to heavy drug use (i.e., an interactive or multiplicative relationship). For women, moderate to heavy drug use increased strain independently of unemployment (additive effect). But light (less than weekly) use exacerbated strain for women under the condition of regular employment although showing no effect for women when unemployed.