Posted on 06/05/2009 9:12:31 PM PDT by neverdem
BALTIMORE — For as many as a third of adolescents who report riding in a car with a drinking driver, that driver is actually a parent rather than a peer.
That startling finding, from an observational study based on a cross-sectional questionnaire of 2,100 adolescents, highlights “a profoundly underrecognized and undertreated public health problem,” Dr. Celeste R. Wilson said in a poster presentation at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies.
“Primary care providers need effective counseling strategies for adolescents exposed to parents who drive while intoxicated and more training in how to deal with parents who are placing their children at risk by engaging in this behavior,” said Dr. Wilson, who is with the Center for Adolescent Substance Abuse Research at Children's Hospital, Boston.
The study sample was recruited from among 12- to 18-year-olds who arrived for routine care visits at one of nine primary care practices in Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire during 2005-2008.
The total 2,100 adolescents who completed the 20-item survey had a mean age of 16 years, and two-thirds were female. Half had at least one parent with a college degree, and 69% lived with both parents.
Of the 2,100 total respondents, 22% reported having ridden in a car in the previous 90 days with a driver who had been drinking. Of those 459 respondents, 41% identified that driver as someone living in their home. And of those 189 respondents, 91% (172) said that the drinking driver living in their home was an adult who was over 21 years of age.
Because of Institutional Review Board concerns about study subject protection, the survey did not directly inquire whether the drinking driver was a parent or guardian. Instead, the descriptions “an adult over 21 years of age” and “living in your home” were used as proxies, Dr. Wilson explained.
Adolescents who reported riding with a drinking driver who was an adult living in their home were more likely to be female, to be white, and to have a parent with no college degree. Younger adolescents were more likely than older ones to report riding with a drinking “parent,” she said.
Although the exact nature of the relationship between the adult drinking driver and the adolescent could not be confirmed, other questionnaire data supported the supposition that a majority of these were indeed parents.
The risk for having ridden with a drinking driver who was older than 21 and living in the teenager's home was more than three times greater for those who agreed with the survey items, “I have a parent whose use of alcohol or other drugs worries me,” “I have a parent who gets drunk or high,” and/or “I have a parent who needs treatment for alcohol or other drug problems.” The risk was more than double for those who said, “I have a parent who uses alcohol or drugs soon after getting up in the morning.”
Still, Dr. Wilson acknowledged that at least in some cases, the drinking driver might be an older sibling or a parent's romantic partner who is not the teen's parent. Nonetheless, “I think the key issue is that an adult who is well known to the adolescent is engaging in behavior that's potentially putting the adolescent at risk.”
This study was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health and several private foundations. Dr. Wilson stated that she had no financial disclosures.
Ping
It never ceases to amaze me that the generation of drugs,sex, and rock and roll and if it feels good do it. Is the generation that has become so controlling of everyone it encounters. This generation that said no to their parents values has now become the generation that wants to impose their values on everyone else. I am not saying this because I approve of drinking and driving with underage children or drinking or drugging and driving at all. But the intrusion of the Nanny state in every facet of life.
> So, what are, “effective counseling strategies for adolescents exposed to parents who drive while intoxicated and more training in how to deal with parents who are placing their children at risk by engaging in this behavior”?
I’ll take a crack at that one. It divides into two parts:
1) Obviously “adolescents exposed to parents who drive while intoxicated” may need to have reinforced that drink-driving is wrong even if Mum and Dad to it: they’re not being positive role models. (Not all adolescents rebel against their parents, despite popular perception — some actually look up to their parents — therefore the need to put the parents’ wrongdoing into a correct perspective so the adolescents don’t emulate them.)
2) How does one “deal with parents who are placing their children at risk by engaging in” drink driving? I can think of several strategies. Whichever one(s) get adopted will require training for their field staff and everybody else involved. Perhaps even the parents themselves.
(I used to be a bureaucrat for a brief time in my career. This helps me decipher their gobbledy-gook)
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Remembering back when I was a teenager and frequently baby-sat on the weekends. I was pretty naive back then - but looking back now as an adult - I’m pretty sure there were many a times that the father/husband drove me home and he was pretty buzzed.
There was a recent case here in town where a middle-aged “soccer mom” type was hospitalized with serious injuries. And then charged with several crimes after driving herself, her son and his friend into a telephone pole at 9 p.m. on a Friday night. She was drunk. Traffic was a mess for hours on that road. Her name was printed in the papers, a “nice” family. Bad situation.
Upside down world we now live in.
When I grew up, all the parents drank and drove, plus us kids never wore seat belts, everyone smoked, kids played outside all night long in summer.
Today everything is illegal, you can smoke, cant drink and drive, cant slap your kids, cant even walk a dog without carring its poop for him.
Yea, things are much much better today... NOT
I REALLY miss the America I grew up in.
There’s no excuse for driving while intoxicated with your children in the car. However, that doesn’t appear to be the question. It is driving after drinking with no specification of amount or time since ingestion.
Dad cuts the grass, has a beer over 30 minutes, and gets asked by his son to give him a ride to the mall where he will meet friends. Dad’s driving after drinking. He’s not intoxicated. And he’s not breaking the law.
Mom pours a class of wine and has a sip when the daughter wants a ride to a girlfriend’s house for a sleepover. Technically, Mom’s driving after drinking. She’s not intoxicated. And she’s not breaking the law.
This seems to me to be more ways for the nanny state to intrude upon the family under the guise of protecting the “children.” The blood alcohol levels required for DUI in most states are fairly low. If a driver is under the legal limit, he/she is certainly safe to drive.
Wow! That's a LOT!
That startling finding, from an observational study based on a cross-sectional questionnaire of 2,100 adolescents, highlights "a profoundly underrecognized and undertreated public health problem," Dr. Celeste R. Wilson said in a poster presentation at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies.
She's right! It IS startling, not to mention profoundly underrecognized and undertreated!
Of the 2,100 total respondents... ...(172) said that the drinking driver living in their home was an adult who was over 21 years of age.
Oh wait, that's just 8% of the respondents.
Therefore, unless they had a lawyer next to them, do not answer any questions about anyone in our family concerning our personal lives at the government school.
I cut out an article for them to read about a white kid who got in trouble for answering a survey question about race incorrectly.
I leaned from them that the kids who fill out the survey use them as a joke. For example, if asked if they engage in various sexual practices - they answer that they do - every day, twenty times with men, women and children, dogs, cats and parrots.
Absolutely right. They're angling for more laws and regulations, at the expense of the rest of us.
Whatever happened to those “MADD” advertising. Good to see none of that anymore.
“Whatever happened to those “MADD” advertising.”
They were sued by DAMM (Drinkers Against Mad Mothers).
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