Parental Marital Quality and Adolescent Problem Drinking; Exploration of Psychological Control as Mediator.

Abstract

Adolescent problem drinking is a big problem in the Netherlands. To prevent this problem, interventions should be focused on the factors that may predict this behavior. Marital quality is an important factor in the family system that influences different behavioral outcomes of children. In the current study, we test if marital quality predicts adolescent problem drinking, and if the specific parenting practice, psychological control, is a mediator of this relation. To answer this question, we used data of three waves from the longitudinal study 'Family and Health' (Harakeh, Engels, de Vries, & Scholte, 2005). Participants in this study were 415 two-parent families with two adolescent children, from which we used the data of mother, father and the youngest child. Marital quality was not found to predict adolescent problem drinking. This result suggest the suggested mediation model is not present. However, it was found that psychological control predicts adolescent problem drinking. Implications for future research are being discussed.