Is it safe to just try? A longitudinal study of adolescent patterns of drinking and smoking via latent transition analyses

Abstract

Purpose A growing body of research reports fruitful evidence about longitudinal patterns of alcohol and tobacco use. However, it is still necessary to understand longitudinal patterns of alcohol and tobacco use separately especially to describe if their sporadic use in adolescence is indeed sporadic or leads to escalation. This study aimed at exploring stability and change in alcohol and tobacco use. Methods This was a prospective longitudinal study with three waves of yearly data collection in Spain. The sample at T1 (2020) included 889 adolescents (48.3 % female, Mage = 12.6; SDage = 0.83). Alcohol and tobacco use were measured with a validated questionnaire. Two Latent Transition Analyses were conducted. Results Three statuses were found for alcohol and tobacco use: non-user, sporadic user, and frequent user. Non-users and frequent users were highly stable over time, with the vast majority remining in their respective group one year later. Escalation from non-users to frequent users was rare and occurred only in 4–5 % of alcohol non-users and 3–5 % of tobacco non-users. On the other hand, sporadic users were likely to escalate to frequent users (>45 %) and unlikely to de-escalate to non-users (0–13 %). Similarly, sporadic tobacco users were relatively likely to escalate to frequent users (18–27 %) and 15–21 % de-escalated to non-users. Conclusions While non-users were relatively stable over time, the risk of escalation in alcohol and tobacco use after having tried these substances once or twice in adolescence was relatively high. Thus, interventions should discourage even sporadic experimentation with these substances and strengthening protective factors.