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Patterns of drug use and sensation‐seeking among adolescents in Norway
Author(s) -
Pedersen W.,
Clausen S.E.,
Lavik N. J.
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
acta psychiatrica scandinavica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.849
H-Index - 146
eISSN - 1600-0447
pISSN - 0001-690X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0447.1989.tb10274.x
Subject(s) - sensation seeking , psychology , impulsivity , clinical psychology , cannabis , norwegian , disinhibition , drug , personality , psychiatry , social psychology , linguistics , philosophy
– The relationship between personality and drug use was investigated by studying patterns of sensation‐seeking behaviour and drug use among adolescents. A questionnaire was distributed to a sample of 1027 Norwegian senior high school students aged 16 to 19 in the greater Oslo area. The response rate was 97%. The sensation‐seeking subscores showed moderate to strong association with the use of the different drugs. A canonical correlation analysis yielded 3 significant variates: in the drug use domain the first dimension correlated with the use of legal drugs and inhalants, the second with cannabis and tranquillizers and the third with tobacco. In the sensation‐seeking domain the first dimension was almost synonymous with the disinhibition scale, the second with experience‐seeking, and the third correlated highly negatively with thrill‐, adventure‐ and experience‐seeking. The results support the assumption that a strong link exists between sensation seeking and drug use. They further show the importance of taking different subdimensions of the sensation‐seeking trait into account for prevention and treatment of drug use and abuse.