Self-Initiated Cessation from Substance Use: A Longitudinal Study of the Relationship between Postulated Mediators and Quitting

Abstract

This study examines psychosocial predictors of self-initiated substance use cessation among youths who have had recent substance use experience. Variables included those that are the focus of many primary prevention programs. Middle school and high school students who used either alcohol, cigarettes, smokeless tobacco, marijuana, or inhalants were surveyed on two occasions, one year separating the pretest and posttest. Pretest differences distinguished those who would quit versus those who would continue using alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana, but not inhalants. The largest pretest differences were youths' normative beliefs, manifest commitments to not use substances, and perceived incongruence between drug use and their desired lifestyles. Those who continued to use had scale values for most mediators that continued to worsen in programmatic terms, whereas measures among those who quit significantly improved. School-aged users may benefit from programs that target some of the same mediators currently promoted as effective in primary prevention programs.