Abstract
Gender-Related Profiles of the Character Accentuations in Adolescents Tending to Use Alcohol
Author(s): Bartosh TP and Bartosh OPABSTRACT
Background: The paper considers gender-related differences in the character accentuations of the adolescents living in the North-East of Russia who are addicted to alcohol. Also, separately between girls and boys, the differences in character types were studied for those prone to drinking alcohol and who are not inclined to. Aim: The study was to determine the gender-related profiles of character accentuations in adolescents prone to alcohol consumption. The object of the study involves two tasks: 1. To study the character types among those addicted and not addicted to alcohol; 2. To specify gender-related features of the character accentuations among adolescents tending to use alcohol and those not inclined to. Material and methods: The study involved 204 adolescents aged 14-17 from three schools in the city of Magadan. Among them, 105 girls (group I) and 99 boys (group II). The questionnaire by G. Schmishek - K. Leonhard was used to determine the types of the character accentuations. Statistical processing of the data was carried out using the licensed software packages of Excel-97 and Statistica-10. The examinees were divided into two groups of those addicted and not addicted to alcohol based on the Michigan Screening Test for Adolescents, “Are There Problems with Drugs and Alcohol?” Results: The examined girls prone to drinking alcohol differed from their age mates who were not prone to using psychologically active substances, by reliably (p<0.05) more pronounced features of the excitable type, and less emotive and demonstrative types. The examined boys who tended to have alcohol, unlike their peers who were not inclined to drink alcohol, had significant differences (p<0.05) in five types of accentuations: more pronounced traits of hyperthymic, emotive, cyclothymic, excitable and exalted types of character.We observed a higher profile of accentuations in the girls compared with the peer boys and referred it to the gender-related features of accentuations in adolescence, regardless of the tendency to use PAS. The emotive, alarming, cyclothymic, excitable and exalted types of accentuations proved to equally prevail in all the girls (p<0.05). Of note that, the girls not prone to drinking alcohol demonstrated hyperthymic and demonstrative types of characters which predominated in comparison with the boys who do not drink alcohol (p<0.05). Conclusion: The prevailing personality traits in adolescents both boys and girls who tend to drink alcohol can serve as unfavorable prognostic signs of addiction to psychoactive substances as compared to their age mates not addicted to PAS.