Adolescent life events, perception, and relationship to risk behavior.

Abstract

Seven hundred and twenty nine senior high school students were surveyed to determine their level of participation in nine risk behaviors. The behaviors were: (1)not using seat belts, (2) riding with a drinking driver, (3) speeding, (4) drinking and driving, (5) smoking, (6) use of over the counter drugs, (7) use of marijuana, (8) use of cocaine or other hard drugs, (9) use of alcohol. The students were also asked to respond to a list of forty-five life events, which included: death of a parent, moving, failing a class, getting drivers license, outstanding personal achievement, parent's divorce, getting stopped by the police, change in physical appearance etc., by indicating which of these events they had experienced. In addition, they were asked to give their perception of how the event would impact them. Teens who experienced a greater number of life events reported higher levels of involvement in risk behavior than their peers who experienced fewer life events. Deviance events were significantly related to all nine of the risk behaviors, and failure events to eight of the nine. Autonomy events were inversely related to risk behavior, as students experiencing a higher number of these events reported less involvement in all of the nine risk behaviors. Gender was a significant factor in the perception of life events with females assigning higher scores to thirty-four of the thirty-five life events.