TY - JOUR PY - 1991// TI - A comparison of drug involvement between runaways and school youths JO - Journal of drug education A1 - Fors, S. W. A1 - Rojek, D. G. SP - 13 EP - 25 VL - 21 IS - 1 N2 - Problems related to homeless/runaway youths have received increased attention in recent years. Homeless/runaway youths manifest many problems in addition to being absent from home and without supervision of a parent or guardian. The purpose of the study was to determine drug use and abuse patterns of homeless/runaway youths and to compare those patterns, along with attitudes toward selected illicit behaviors, with similar data collected from adolescents in school. Data were collected from persons (n = 253) in homeless/runaway shelters in the southeast United States. Comparisons made with data from other studies of runaways and of youths in school indicate that drug use and abuse is two-three times more prevalent for runaways than with the school youths. Runaways' attitudes toward selected illicit behaviors are more tolerant than those of school youths. Intervention programs for runaway/homeless youths should reflect an understanding of the complexity of the psycho-social and behavioral history of the clients which is much different than that of those who are in school.

Language: en

LA - en SN - 0047-2379 UR - http://dx.doi.org/ ID - ref1 ER -