This longitudinal two-wave cross-national study investigated whether intentions, friends' substance use, and parent-adolescent substance-use specific communication predict adolescent alcohol and cannabis use 1 year later, while estimating reversed links. The temporal order between these two substances was also examined. We used multi-group cross-lagged panel modeling on data from 2 ethnically and socioeconomically diverse samples: Sint Maarten (N = 350; Mage = 14.19) and the Netherlands (N = 602; Mage = 13.50). Results showed that in the Netherlands, cannabis use predicts more subsequent problems (alcohol use, intention to use cannabis, and affiliation with cannabis-using friends). But for Sint Maarten, alcohol use predicts more subsequent problems (cannabis use, intention to use alcohol, and affiliation with alcohol-using friends). These opposing results demonstrate that caution is warranted when generalizing results across countries.
Keywords: adolescence; cross-national; intentions; parenting practices; peer influences; substance use.
© 2023 The Authors. Journal of Research on Adolescence published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Research on Adolescence.