Risk factors and protection of illicit drug use in Latin American adolescents

Abstract

Introduction: illicit drug use is a public health problem associated with high rates of school, work, and social disability. The population with the highest rate of increase in illicit drug use are adolescents, due to their age and biological immaturity. Studies in Latin America mainly identify personal, biological, psychological, and sociocultural risk factors for illicit drug use.

Objective: to analyze the scientific evidence on the risk and protective factors of illicit drug use in adolescents in Latin America.

Method: the literature search was carried out in: Web of Science, CINAHL, PubMed, MEDLINE, LILACS, SCIELO.

Results: in the initial search, a total of 1181 reports were obtained. For the full text evaluation, 147 potentially relevant articles were retrieved, selecting a total of 17 publications that met the inclusion criteria. The findings were grouped into two thematic categories: 1) Risk factors: biological, family, individual, socio-environmental, psychological, and socio-educational; 2) Protection factors: family, religious, psychological and socio-environmental.

Discussion and conclusions: the findings of the scope review reveal that there are numerous investigations on the various risk and protective factors of illicit drug use in school adolescents. In addition, it was confirmed that united families and religiosity are protective factors for illicit drug use.