Association between cumulating substances use and cumulating several school, violence and mental health difficulties in early adolescents.

Multiple substances (alcohol, tobacco, cannabis and other illicit drugs (OID)) have been frequently used in early adolescents maybe due to school, violence and mental-health difficulties. We investigated the associations between substance-use patterns and related difficulties among 1559 middle-school adolescents from north-eastern France (mean age 13.5 ± 1.

[From early adolescence to adulthood].

In industrialized countries, the transition from early adolescence to adulthood takes a long time (over 10 years) and is a diversified process. Puberty marks the starting point of adolescence, while the end of the adolescent process is defined by social factors, such as integration in the world of work, leaving the parents' home, and living with a stable partner. During adolescence, the difference between boys and girls becomes progressively well established, not only concerning physical growth and body changes, but also concerning lifestyle and health behavior, including risky behavior.

Are occupational factors and mental difficulty associated with occupational injury?

Objective: To evaluate the associations between biomechanical, physical, and psychological demands and occupational injury according to depressive symptoms severity.

Methods: Two thousand eight hundred eighty-two French working people completed a questionnaire covering sociodemographic characteristics, smoking, alcohol consumption, obesity, job, chronic diseases, depressive symptoms, and injuries during the previous 2-year period. Data were analyzed using logistic regression.

First positive reactions to cannabis constitute a priority risk factor for cannabis dependence.

Aim: To assess the association between first reactions to cannabis and the risk of cannabis dependence.

Design: A cross-sectional population-based assessment in 2007.

Setting: A campus in a French region (Champagne-Ardennes).

Relationship of physical job demands to initiating smoking among working people: a population-based cross-sectional study.

This study assessed the relationships of lifetime smoking and initiating smoking with job demands among 2,888 randomly selected workers, aged 15 yr or over, using a post-mailed questionnaire. Cumulated job demands (CJD) was defined as the number of: using pneumatic tools, other vibrating hand tools, hammer, tasks at height, working in adverse climate, pace of working, cold, heat, and noise exposure. Lifetime smoking was reported by 63.

Asthma, obesity, and eating behaviors according to the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders IV in a large population-based sample of adolescents.

Background: Obesity is related to asthma, but factors influencing this relation have not been clearly defined.

Objective: This study was designed to assess the role of eating behaviors and weight concerns in the association between obesity and asthma.

Design: A population-based sample of 11,710 adolescents, recruited from 186 secondary schools of 8 educational districts in France, completed a self-administered standardized questionnaire including DSM IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) questions on eating disorders.

Fatigue, insomnia and nervousness: gender disparities and roles of individual characteristics and lifestyle factors among economically active people.

Background: Individuals with certain personal, family and job characteristics are at elevated risk of poor mental health. Yet, the respective role of obesity, smoking, alcohol abuse, low education, income, living and family conditions, and socio-occupational category in fatigue/insomnia (FI), nervousness (N) and frequent drug use for those disorders (DFI and DN) among men and women and in gender disparities are not well known.

Methods: We studied gender differences in FI, N, DFI, DN, and in their correlated, and whether the gender differences were mediated by individual and lifestyle factors among 3,450 active subjects aged 18-64, randomly selected from North-eastern France.

Psychological distress in first year university students: socioeconomic and academic stressors, mastery and social support in young men and women.

Purpose: Little is known about the role of stressors associated with university life on psychological distress (PD). The aims of this article are to: (1) assess the prevalence of PD among students during their first year of university; (2) study its associations with stressors (socioeconomic and university-related) and protective factors (mastery, social support); and (3) to compare these factors according to gender.

Methods: Cross-sectional study of a random sample of students aged 18-24 years, in their first year of university in 2005-2006, enrolled in the 6 universities of southeastern France.

Has occasional cannabis use among adolescents also to be considered as a risk marker?

Background: The association between cannabis use and health or behaviour problems is quite well established. Little is known about the risk markers related to occasional or former use. This work aims to explore associations between well-being in life and different levels of cannabis use.

Social inequalities and correlates of psychotropic drug use among young adults: a population-based questionnaire study.

Background: Use of psychotropic drugs is widespread in Europe, and is markedly more common in France than elsewhere. Young adults often fare less well than adolescents on health indicators (injury, homicide, and substance use). This population-based study assessed disparities in psychotropic drug use among people aged 18-29 from different socio-occupational groups and determined whether they were mediated by educational level, health status, income, health-related behaviours, family support, personality traits, or disability.

Associations of social and material deprivation with tobacco, alcohol, and psychotropic drug use, and gender: a population-based study.

Background: The aim was to assess the relationships between social and material deprivation and the use of tobacco, excessive alcohol and psychotropic drugs by both sexes and in various age groups. Greater knowledge concerning these issues may help public health policy-makers design more effective means of preventing substance abuse.

Methods: The sample comprised 6,216 people aged > or 15 years randomly selected from the population in north-eastern France.

Perceived parenting styles and tobacco, alcohol and cannabis use among French adolescents: gender and family structure differentials.

Aims: To assess associations between parental control or parental emotional support and current tobacco, alcohol or cannabis use among 12-18-year-old students, according to gender and family structure (intact family, reconstituted family, single-parent family).

Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in a national representative sample in France (2003) of 6-12th grade students (N = 16,532), as a part of the ESPAD study (European Study Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs). The self-administered questionnaire included questions on last 30 days' consumption of alcohol, tobacco and cannabis as well as on socio-demographic characteristics, school characteristics, and some simple questions on parental control and parental emotional support.

School injury and gender differentials: a prospective cohort study.

This study assessed the role of certain individual characteristics in school injury among male and female adolescents. The sample included 2,398 subjects attending middle schools and high schools. Respondents completed a self-administered questionnaire at the beginning of the school year.

Culture as an explanation for substance-related problems: a cross-national study among French and Dutch adolescents.

Our main goal was to establish whether French and Dutch adolescents differ in rates of substance-related adverse events (e.g. fights, robbery), problems with peers or socializing agents even when controlling for pattern of substance use.

Do male and female adolescents differ in the effect of individual and family characteristics on their use of psychotropic drugs?

This study assesses the effects of individual and family characteristics on psychotropic drug use among male and female adolescents. The sample included 2,396 subjects attending two middle schools and two high schools. Respondents completed self-administered questionnaires covering gender, age, body mass index, smoking, alcohol use, illicit drug use, tiredness during the daytime, self-reported personality traits, family conditions, and psychotropic drug use.

Is alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis use as well as polydrug use increasing in France?

Two school surveys measured the consumption of alcohol, tobacco and cannabis among French adolescents (7-12th grades), one in 1993 (N=8435, 48.8% males), another in 1999 (N=11,331, 47.9% males).

[Sports practices and violent behaviors in 14-16 year-olds: analysis based on the ESPAD 99 survey data].

To date, there has been little research into the relationship between violent behavior and the practice of sport in young adolescents (both girls and boys) in the general population. Indeed, sport is often recommended as a means of prevention and an alternative to violence in adolescence. For this reason, we studied this issue in a representative sample of 14-16 year-olds (ESPAD 99).

[Sporting activities and psychoactive substance use. Data abstracted from the French part of the European School Survey on Alcohol and other Drugs (ESPAD 99)].

Few studies have analyzed in the general population psychoactive substance use among athletes, especially among females. In fact, sporting activity is often promoted in prevention actions, as an alternative to addiction or alcohol, tobacco or other substance misuse. So, we propose an analysis of the ESPAD 1999 sample among students (16-18 years old), focused on the relationship between sporting activities and substance use.

Alcohol culture, family structure and adolescent alcohol use: multilevel modeling of frequency of heavy drinking among 15-16 year old students in 11 European countries.

Objective: Frequency of heavy alcohol use among adolescents is examined by family structure and propensity toward heavy alcohol use on the individual level, and by alcohol availability and drinking patterns among adolescents on the societal level. The analysis includes direct effects and moderating effects of societal-level indicators on individual-level associations between family structure and frequency of heavy alcohol use.

Method: The study drew upon self-reports from 34,001 students in Cyprus, France, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Lithuania, Malta, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Sweden and the United Kingdom participating in the 1999 European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs study.

Women's Roles and Women's Drinking: A Comparative Study in Four European Countries.

The present study analyzes the influence of role combinations on heavy drinking in four European countries: Finland, France, Germany, and Switzerland. Data sets come from nationally representative surveys. A growing number of studies have investigated the influence of social roles on alcohol consumption.

Family structure, parent-child relationships, and alcohol and other drug use among teenagers in France and the United Kingdom.

This paper compares samples of 15-16-year-olds from the UK and France on their usage of alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs and also seeks to describe the associations between alcohol and other drug use with "family variables" within the two countries. Compared to UK adolescents, French adolescents showed a slightly higher rate of cigarette smoking, were almost identical on cannabis use, rather lower on the use of other illicit drugs and very considerably lower on alcohol use. Family variables were related to substance use.