Russian adolescents in the era of Perestroika: The relationships among family environment, drug use, and depression

A sample of 159 (60% girls) Russian adolescents (mostly 15 & 16 year-olds) were surveyed at a suburban Moscow secondary school in the fall of 1992. The purpose of this survey was: (a) to provide descriptive and comparative data for establishing initial baseline levels of Russian adolescent drug use, depression, and family environment by comparing this data to U.S. studies; and (b) to explore the relationships of the Russian family environment (cohesion, conflict, and adolescent-parent closeness) with adolescent drug use (ever-use, age of onset, & frequency) and depression.; The major findings were: (a) Russian adolescents viewed their family environments as having less conflict than did U.S. adolescents, while levels of cohesion were similar between samples; (b) Russian adolescents began to smoke and drink at significantly earlier ages and were more depressed than U.S. adolescents; (c) Russian youth who viewed their families as conflictual and non-supportive indicated feelings of depression, and also those who were not close with their parents reported feeling depressed; (d) tobacco (56.3%) and alcohol (76.1%) were the most commonly used drugs by Russian adolescents; (e) more Russian girls had used alcohol (82% to 67%) and were more depressed than the Russian boys, while more boys had used tobacco (70% to 47%) and at an earlier average age (11.5 years) than the girls (12.9 years); (f) tobacco users were not as close to their mothers as non-users of tobacco: girls who used tobacco expressed more conflict in their families than girls who did not use tobacco, but boys who used tobacco were more depressed and felt a lack of family cohesion than boys who had abstained from tobacco; (g) significant differences in alcohol users and non-users were only found among the Russian boys: compared to boys who did not drink, the boy drinkers expressed a lack of family cohesion and closeness with their mothers, the boy drinkers also felt more depressed and perceived more family conflict than had boys who did not consume alcohol.; The results of this research have implications for the development of future cross-national studies. The findings support the necessity of including multi-level dimensions (e.g., family environment and community) when examining adolescent drug use and depression.