Social capital, substance use disorder and depression among youths

Background: Social capital - the network of social connections that exists among people - is known to be related to depression and substance use among adults. However, little is known about these relationships among adolescents, even though this age group is vulnerable due to factors of peer pressure, family, neighborhood, and maturational changes. Objectives: To evaluate the associations among social capital, substance use disorder and depression on a sample of 17 705 respondents between the ages of 12 and 17 in the 2009 National Survey of Drug Use and Health. Methods: Structural equation modeling was used to examine social capital; responses to 48 items differentiated into two factors that measured structural social and cognitive social capital. Adolescent depression and substance use disorder were measured as past-year major depressive episodes and substance use disorder according to DSM-IV criteria. Results: Structural social capital was associated with substance use disorder (beta = -0.12; p = 0.001) and depression (beta = -0.19; p = 0.001). Cognitive social capital was associated with substance use disorder (beta = -0.17; p = 0.001), but not with depression (beta = -0.002; p > 0.005). Substance use disorder mediated the association between structural and cognitive social capital and depression (beta = 0.06; p = 0.001). Conclusion: There was support for associations among youth structural and cognitive social capital, substance use disorder and depression. These findings suggest that additional research of a longitudinal nature is needed to determine causal connections among social capital, depression and substance use disorder for adolescents.