Definitions of peer connectedness in studies of adolescent substance use: A scoping review

• In Event: Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Topic - Methods, History, Theory

Abstract

Adolescents' relationships with their peers play a critical role in the development of substance use and other health risk behaviors. While it is clear that an adolescents' peers' substance use may be related to their own substance use through selection and influence processes, another line of research examines the link between an adolescent's substance use and their overall level of connectedness to their peers. However, the totality of an adolescent's social position within their peer network is challenging to operationalize, given that it encompasses a wide range of more specific constructs. As such, the strength and direction of this relationship varies across studies, with studies linking substance use risk to constructs related to both higher levels of connectedness (e.g., network centrality and peer-rated popularity; Tucker et al., 2011) and lower levels of connectedness (e.g., network isolation; Ennett et al., 2006). The current study is a scoping review of different operationalizations of overall peer connectedness among adolescents in studies of substance use. The goal of this scoping review is to enumerate all of the major ways in which studies of substance use in adolescence define, measure, and analyze peer connectedness. Ultimately, the resulting knowledge will inform a systematic review which examines how differences between studies in how they operationalize peer connectedness relate to differences in the relationships these studies report between peer connectedness and substance use.
The review follows a standard protocol for scoping reviews (Tricco et al., 2018), as shown in the OSF record linked here (anonymized link: https://osf.io/mbnaf/?view_only=bd088394391946cca353786311973d03). The first step was to search for articles by entering a string (available in above-mentioned OSF record) representing a maximally inclusive set of search terms into the PubMed, EMBASE, and PsycInfo databases, yielding 9,616 articles. The initial screening step, in which titles and abstracts are examined to make a preliminary determination about relevance, is currently being completed by three trained reviewers. For an article to be considered eligible, two of three reviewers must make an initial determination based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria outlined in the above-mentioned OSF record; conflicts are adjudicated by the first author. After this initial screening step, the remaining articles will be subject to a second screening step in which three trained reviewers examine the full text of each article to determine relevance; we expect to retain between 50 and 70 articles. This step is predicted to be completed by December 15, 2020. After the final set of articles has been selected, data extraction will begin. As this is a scoping review, the goal is to quantitatively describe the breadth of the different, more specific constructs encompassed by social connectedness. Thus, for each article, we will extract at least the following fields: the name of the construct as reported by the authors (e.g., social isolation); method of measurement (e.g., peer nominations); specific measure (e.g., Bonacich centrality); and data analytic method (e.g., stochastic actor-based models). This step will be completed by March 15, 2021, and the resulting summary statistics will be presented in the poster.

Authors

• Veronica Tess Cole, Wake Forest University
  Presenting Author

• Rachel L Norotsky, Wake Forest University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Shayari T Peiris, Wake Forest University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lydia F Bierce, Wake Forest University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Leah Richmond-Rakerd, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
  Non-Presenting Author

• Andrea Hussong, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  Non-Presenting Author