Potential Psychological Factors Associated with High Risk for Cannabis Abuse: Evidence from Multiple Logistic Regression

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to provide a list of psychological variables likely to explain cannabis abuse among adolescents and young adults based on the following psychological risk factors: anxiety, depression, difficulty in describing feelings, difficulty in identifying feelings, and external oriented thought. The analysis was based on the multiple logistic regression technique; the step-wise procedure showed that only anxiety, depression, and difficulty in describing feelings were retained in the final model. Following this, additive versus interactive models under different assumptions between the three independent variables were also assessed. The key findings of this study are twofold: (a) anxiety was revealed to be the primary risk factor for cannabis abuse and (b) no interaction between the aforementioned factors proved to be significantly informative in explaining high risk cannabis abuse. Findings were discussed in the context of the current knowledge of the relationship between anxious and depressive symptoms and higher risk of substance abuse and dependence.