Determinantes psicologicos, familiares y ambientales en el consumo de marihuana en adolecentes.

Abstract

Drug use among adolescents is a public health problem that can negatively affect their physical, cognitive, and emotional development. It is known that drug use is influenced by psychological, family, and environmental factors —determining intervening aspects— that affect the development of the problem. This research article focuses on describing the psychological, family, and environmental factors according to the level of exposure or risk of marijuana use in adolescents. To this end, the methodological approach was qualitative in origin and descriptive in nature, based on a narrative literature review; therefore, articles from 2017 to 2022 developed in the context of Latin America were considered. The results showed that the predisposing factors, which usually have a high degree of influence, are curiosity, sensation seeking, experimentation, and the need for belonging among young people, as well as the lack of parental supervision and communication and other deep-rooted components such as the easy availability of drugs in the community, peer pressure, exposure to drug culture, exposure to violence, lack of educational, and employment opportunities, among others, are social risk factors. It is concluded that the identified factors and indicators do not act in isolation but interact with each other and influence drug use. Therefore, it is considered that they should be taken into account as part of the measures to prevent and treat drug use among adolescents.