Social representations used by the parents of Mexican adolescent drug users under treatment to explain their children's drug use: gender differences in parental narratives.

The aim of this study was to explore the social representations used by the parents of adolescent drug users to explain the onset of drug use. Differences in explanations between the parents of male and female adolescents were also explored. Sixty parents who accompanied their children to four rehabilitation centers in 2004 completed two semi-structured questionnaires.

Why do adolescents use drugs? A common sense explanatory model from the social actor's perspective.

Analysis was made of the common sense explanations of 60 Mexican teenage illicit drug users in rehabilitation to determine their drug use debut. The explanatory model was separated into three blocks, two of which contained common sense aspects: interaction between subject's plane and the collectivity; and relationship between subject's interior (subject-family) and exterior (environment or group-pressure). Based on these data, we propose that drug use debut may be linked to subjects' emotional vulnerability which originates in the family image and renders them more susceptible to the influence of others.