Pediatrics & Therapeutics
Open Access

Negative Effects of Drugs and Alcohol Use in Childrens

Harold S Bernstein^{* *}Correspondence: Harold S Bernstein, Department of Pediatrics, University of California, California, USA, Email:

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Description

Globally, substance misuse poses a significant social, public health, and economic burden. For instance, in the US alone, a startling 9.8% of all fatalities are due to alcohol, opioid usage grew by over 400% between 1999 and 2010, and marijuana use disorder among young people increased by an estimated 30% from 2008 to 2016. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization reports that between 2000 and 2016, the number of deaths globally attributed to drug addiction diseases rose alarmingly by 47%. According to this viewpoint, substance use and abuse represent a serious public health issue that requires increased scientific attention [1].

Developing solutions that address substance abuse across its developmental continuum, particularly prevention-focused measures aimed at kids, may be desired in order to reduce the social burden of substance use. Some theory-based therapies in this area have demonstrated encouraging outcomes by focusing on young people who might be more susceptible to substance abuse in the future. Early-life risk factors include teenage rebellion, living in high-risk families, and beginning substance use early in life [2]. Preventive interventions are desired because they add to the arsenal of weapons against substance abuse and because they can be delivered by trained volunteers, parents, or teachers, relieving the workload of overworked and understaffed mental health professionals.

Early substance experimentation has been a significant risk factor for substance addiction. For instance, 11 to 12-year-olds who experimented with alcohol were (a) at a risk of developing dependence later in life that was (b) almost fifteen times greater than that of children who started experimenting after the age of 18. Even after controlling for family risk profiles, research into these processes in childhood has revealed links between substance experimentation (in the form of drinking alcohol) and risk for later problematic alcohol use as early as age nine [3].

However, there is still much to discover about aspects of early life or personality traits that can affect young people's drug or alcohol experimentation. We suggest that having a more thorough understanding of the specific childhood traits or processes connected to substance experimentation at this age would improve our capacity to: (1) Design efficient interventions to support young people who exhibit early-life substance use or experimentation; and (2) Recognize young people who are more likely to experiment with drugs or alcohol, enabling timely support that could address risky substance use behavior [4]. There is evidence linking early substance use with later substance dependence, but more research is required to fully grasp the mechanisms and processes that may influence this early substance use.

It is helpful to keep in mind that affective pathologies like depression or anxiety disorders frequently come before substance abuse disorders in adults when examining early-life causes or processes that could contribute to drug or alcohol experimentation. Additionally, people who have comorbid depression and anxiety disorders typically have more severe mental or affective distress as well as substance use symptoms. Thus, there is strong evidence that adult substance use may be influenced by mental health issues linked to unpleasant affect. According to transdiagnostic research and theory, dysregulated negative affect, such as extreme melancholy or anxiety, is a basic diathesis across psychopathologies, including substance abuse. These notions are also congruent with self-medication theories of substance abuse. Similar justifications have been put up to support the idea that substance misuse may be caused by problems controlling negative affect.

Importantly, there is some proof that early substance use and excessive negative affect are related. For instance, prior research has demonstrated that the notion that drug use (in this case, smoking cigarettes) may lessen negative effects has a mediating effect on teen substance use. Relatedly, other studies have demonstrated that a desire to avoid unpleasant experiences has served as a mediator for substance use as early as elementary school. Therefore, there are theoretical grounds for expecting that severe depression or anxiety may serve as significant risk factors for substance use, especially in young people.

While there isn't much direct evidence connecting pathological anxiety or depressed symptoms in childhood to concurrent substance use, depression or anxiety disorders in childhood have been connected to substance use issues in adulthood. For instance, substance use at the age of 14 was predicted by internalizing diseases, including depressive disorders. As a result, anxiety and depressive symptoms frequently co-occur in children, and adults with more severe mental illnesses are more likely to exhibit early signs of substance use problems, such as substance experimentation.

The primary goal of the current study is to investigate the association between concurrent substance experimentation and affect-mediated illnesses of late childhood (e.g., depressive and anxiety disorders, ages 9–12). Here, the study hypothesized that kids with either a depressive or an anxiety disorder would be more likely to try alcohol or tobacco because of the prevalence of self-medication theories of substance consumption as well as links between early substance use and a desire to escape negative affect or emotions. The impact of anxiety and depressive illnesses co-occurring on kids' propensity to try with drugs. Additionally, children who have been diagnosed with both depression and anxiety disorders are more likely to try alcohol or tobacco than children who only have one of the conditions.

Conclusion

Importantly, certain aspects of the home environment may have an impact on children's substance use and mental health at the same time. Parental Socioeconomic Status (SES) is possibly the most important environmental factor. SES, for instance, has demonstrated the ability to predict a variety of environmental elements connected to substance use, such as parental support and supervision or the risk of growing up with just one parent. As a result, the current models account for SES in addition to the child's gender and age.

References

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