Adolescent and young adult antisocial behavior and adult alcohol use disorders: a fourteen-year prospective follow-up in a national survey.

OBJECTIVE

Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) are used to examine the association between antisocial behaviors (ASB) reported in youth (15-22 years old) and alcohol use disorders (AUD) 14 years later in a large (N = 7,326) representative national sample.

METHOD

Structural equation modeling generalized to dichotomous outcomes was used to assess the associations between latent variables of ASB with latent variables of AUD and background variables.

RESULTS

Exploratory factor analysis of 17 ASB items yielded three factors having clear interpretations with the literature-property offenses, person offenses and illicit substance involvement. When examined in the context of the multivariate structural equation model, several independent associations between ASB and AUD symptoms and covariates were found. Although there were significant and independent effects for each ASB factor on each of the alcohol use disorder factors, the strength of the association was strongest for the effects of early illicit substance involvement on alcohol abuse and dependence.

CONCLUSIONS

Both illicit substance involvement and delinquency other than illicit substance involvement reported in 1980 were associated with alcohol use disorders 14 years later.