Risk and protective factors for recreational and hard drug use among Malaysian adolescents and young adults

• Risk and protective factors for substance use occurred in multiple domains.
• Risk and protective factors for recreational and hard drug use were similar.
• Risk and protective factors for substance use differed by age group.
• Risk factors in the individual and peer domains were particularly salient.
• Religious practices and prosocial school involvement were protective factors.

IntroductionThis study investigated risk and protective factors for recreational and hard drug use in Malaysian adolescents and young adults.MethodsParticipants (n = 859; M age = 17.24 years, SD = 2.75 years, range = 13–25 years; 59% male) were recruited from secondary schools, technical colleges, a juvenile detention center and a national training center in Malaysia. A version of the Communities That Care survey validated for use in Malaysia (Razali & Kliewer, 2015) was used to assess study constructs.ResultsOne in 6 adolescents and 1 in 3 young adults reported lifetime recreational and hard drug use, with greater use reported by males across all drug categories. Structural equation modeling was used to determine the strongest risk and protective factors for recreational and hard drug use. The overall pattern of findings was similar for recreational and hard drug use. Shared risk factors for lifetime recreational and hard drug use included early initiation of antisocial behavior, peer antisocial behavior, and peer reinforcement for engaging in antisocial behavior; shared protective factors included religious practices and opportunities for prosocial school involvement. Multiple group analyses comparing adolescents and young adults indicated that patterns of risk and protective factors predicting drug use differed across these age groups. There were fewer significant predictors of either recreational or hard drug use for young adults relative to adolescents.ConclusionsResults suggest that interventions should target multiple microsystems (e.g., peer groups, family systems, school environments) and be tailored to the developmental stage of the individual.