Poor school satisfaction and number of cannabis using peers within school classes as individual risk factors for cannabis use among adolescents

Abstract

There is little information available on the topic of poor school satisfaction as a risk factor for cannabis use among adolescents. We examined if there was an association between poor school satisfaction, school class cannabis use and individual cannabis use. Further, we investigated if many cannabis users within the school class statistically interacted with poor school satisfaction upon the association with individual cannabis use. A cross-sectional study of 1317 Danish 15-year-olds in 95 school classes in a random sample of schools. The exposure variables were school satisfaction and school class cannabis use. The criterion variable was individual cannabis use, three times or more (last 12 months). Poor school satisfaction (OR 2.78, 95% CL = 1.83—4.23), attending a school class with >2 cannabis users (OR 3.68, 95% CL = 2.21—6.12) were associated with cannabis use. In our study there was not a significant statistically interaction between number of cannabis users in school classes and poor school satisfaction upon individual cannabis use (p = 0.183). We found that poor school satisfaction and school class cannabis use where both associated with higher individual cannabis use. The risk factors did not significantly interact and may suggest that they function as individual exposure factors towards adolescent cannabis use.