TITLE:
Personality characteristics and health risk behaviors associated with current marijuana use among college students
AUTHORS:
Carla J. Berg, Taneisha S. Buchanan, Linda Grimsley, Jan Rodd, Daniel Smith
KEYWORDS:
Marijuana Use; Tobacco; Alcohol Use; College Students
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Preventive Medicine,
Vol.1 No.3,
November
17,
2011
ABSTRACT: Objective: Marijuana is a prevalent substance used among young adults and has serious psychosocial and health-related consequences. Thus, identifying factors associated with marijuana use is critical. The current study aimed to examine personality factors and health risk behaviors associated with marijuana use. Methods: We administered an online survey to six colleges in the Southeast. Overall, we recruited 24,055 college students, yielding 4840 responses (20.1% response rate), with complete data from 4,401 students. Results: Current (past 30 day) marijuana use was reported by 13.8% of our sample. Users either reported infrequent use of marijuana (i.e., between 1 and 5 days; 52.3%) or very frequent use of marijuana (i.e. ,between 26 and 30 days; 18.2%). Mutlivariate analyses modeling correlates of marijuana use (Nagelkerke R2 = 0.323) indicated that significant factors included being younger (p