Adicciones con y sin sustancia en adolescentes gallegosprevalencia y variables asociadas

Abstract

Addictions in adolescence have been causing growing social concern for decades in Galicia, as well as in Spain and the European Union as a whole. Although rates of substance use are tending to decrease gradually, the rates are still hight, and appear to be accompanied by dangerous patterns and rituals of consumption and early onset ages. At the same time, behavioural addictions have emerged, linked to the use of the Internet, social networks, video games and gambling, which constitute a new challenge for researchers and institutions. Within this context, the main aim of this dissertation was to analyse the relationship between addictions "with" substance and behavioural addictions in adolescence. For this purpose, a screening for both types of addictions was carried out in a sample of 6,107 adolescents aged between 12 and 19 years-old in the Galician community (�̅=14.96; SD=1.77). An ad hoc questionnaire including screening instruments such as AUDIT, CAST, CRAFFT, EUPI-a, GASA or BAGS was administered. The results obtained show that, in general, substance use and gambling are lower in Galicia than in Spain as a whole. Also, on the one hand, it has been found that addictions "with" substance overlap more with each other than addictions "without" substance. On the other hand, problematic use of alcohol, cannabis and other drugs also have a moderate overlap with problematic gambling and Internet use. Nevertheless, problematic use of video games/gaming seems to occur independently. These and other findings reinforce the need for a more comprehensive preventive approach, capable of acting on certain contextual variables common to both types of addictions, in order to develop programmes that do not focus solely on specific addictions.