Abstract

Introduction. Drug treatment success rate overall is not high (around 20%), but with young offenders it tends to be lower. We need more insight of how to help them and involving parents may be helpful. Self-control is a key factor in drug use treatment and, according to self-control theory, parents play an important role in the development of their offspring’s self-control. Our aim was to evaluate whether parenting skills were indirectly associated to drug use through self-control in young offenders with substance use disorder who are in treatment. Methods. Ninety-eight young offenders (M=17.5; SE= 1.6) attending the Chilean National Drug Treatment Program (2016-2017) answered a questionnaire about drugs used, self-control and maternal parenting skills (warm/harsh parenting, involvement, autonomy support, attitude towards drug use and parental drug use). We conducted mediation analyses to test indirect effect of parenting skills on young offenders’ number of drugs used through young offenders’ self-control, controlling for potential confounders. Results. In mediation analyses, variables that had indirect associations with young offenders’ number of drugs used through young offenders’ self-control, were maternal warmth parenting (b=-0.10, 95% BCa CI [-0.224, -0.034]), maternal harsh parenting (b=0.14, 95% BCa CI [0.066, 0.260]), and maternal autonomy support (b=-0.13, BCa CI [-0.263, -0.058]), with small to medium effect sizes. Conclusions. Young offenders with Substance use Disorder is a difficult group to treat successfully. The insights of the current study on maternal parenting indicate that it might be fruitful to extend this line of research in order to explore – among others - whether maternal style may be a promising avenue to improve young offenders’ outcomes in drug treatment.