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The Relations of Pro‐Drug‐Use Myths With Self‐Reported Drug Use Among Youth at Continuation High Schools 1
Author(s) -
Sussman Steve,
Dent Clyde W.,
Stacy Alan W.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.1996.tb01785.x
Subject(s) - psychology , psychosocial , drug , substance abuse , mythology , ethnic group , discriminant validity , social psychology , clinical psychology , internal consistency , developmental psychology , psychiatry , psychometrics , sociology , philosophy , theology , anthropology
Drug‐use myths, questionable beliefs regarding the effects of drug use, may help to explain why people engage in self‐injurious drug‐use behavior. While clinicians and applied social researchers have used this concept of drug‐use myths extensively when developing substance abuse prevention or cessation programs, drug belief‐type myth measures have not been investigated empirically. The present study examined the internal consistency and discriminant validity of a drug‐use myth measure among 362 continuation (alternative) high school youth and found it to be discriminable from demographic, drug use, and other psychosocial measures. Controlling for its relations with its correlates, social desirability, perceived friends' drug use, ethnicity items, and gender, the myth measure remained significantly associated with 4 drug‐use measures. Future research regarding drug use myths as predictors of drug use is encouraged based on these results.