Contribution des influences parentales et sociales à la consommation de cannabis chez des adolescents scolarisés

As our sample was non-clinical, a first limitation of our findings is that they may not be transposable to patient populations. Another limitation of our study is linked to its cross-sectional design, which prevents the attribution of causal explanations for the associations found. One of the study's strengths is that it assesses potentially important variables not evaluated in previous studies, such as the number of peers opposed to cannabis use and positive and negative expectations of use. The results of the present study suggested that the number of peers using cannabis, father's present or past cannabis use and participants' positive expectations of cannabis use were risk factors for use, whereas the number of peers opposed to cannabis use and the negative expectations of use were protective factors. Parental attitudes toward use did not appear to influence adolescents' cannabis use. In conclusion, our results may have some implications for prevention interventions. They add weight to the view that normalisation of non-use by peers facilitates abstinence. The absence of influence of parental attitudes toward use suggests that parental disapproval of use is not effective in preventing use, whereas the example of father's use or non-use influences adolescent use. The quite low correlation between positive and negative expectancies suggests that prevention interventions presenting information concerning the effects of cannabis use should focus on both reducing positive expectancies and enhancing negative expectancies.