Risk factors for well-being in young people within the scope of child welfare and substance abuse services

Background

In Finland, social work has a strong position in substance abuse treatment, and people with problematic substance use are encountered in social welfare and health care services. So far, research on Finnish substance abuse services has mostly concentrated on services targeted at adults. However, a group which has received little research attention, are young people with substance abuse and the services targeted at them. While the proportion of young people abstaining from alcohol has increased in Finland and many other Western countries, drug abuse among young people have become more pronounced. The polarisation of young people's substance use, the increased availability of substances and the inadequacy of substance abuse services require attention to how young people's substance abuse problems are addressed. 

Objectives

The objective of our study is to analyse 1) somatic and psychiatric morbidity among young people within the scope of child welfare and substance abuse services, and 2) the effect of service use on the association between childhood adversities measured by parental factors and somatic and psychiatric morbidity. 

Material and Methods

Administrative register data of all children born in Finland in 1997 (N=59,000) and 2002 (N=55,369) and their biological parents will be used to follow the children from birth until their 18th birthday, and to detect parental income difficulties, substance abuse and mental health problems. The combined register data contains information from the following registers: social welfare and health care registers, Child welfare register, Income support register, Statistics Finland's cause of death register. In addition, the material contains data from the Population Register. We will use both descriptive methods and modelling (e.g. regression analysis and mediation analysis) in analysing the data.