(PS6-D79) The Impact of Dual Use of Cigarettes and Alcohol on Perceived Parental Stress in Mothers

          Parental stress is linked to cigarette as well as alcohol use. In terms of cigarette use, post-partum mothers most frequently cite stress as the reason for resuming smoking after abstinence (Correa et al., 2015). Furthermore, the challenges of handling infant irritability are associated with smoking relapse among post-partum mothers (Gaffney et al., 2008). In terms of alcohol use, a series of experimental studies demonstrated that parents consumed more alcohol when paired with a confederate child displaying externalizing behaviors versus parents who were paired with a child exhibiting normative behavior (Kashdan et al., 2013; Pelham et al., 1997). However, little is known about the effects of the dual use of cigarettes and alcohol on perceived parental stress despite 46.2 million adults in the United States being dual users (Falk et al., 2006). The current study sought to address this gap by comparing the perceived stress of mothers who use cigarettes as well as alcohol. It was hypothesized that mothers who are dual users will report greater perceived stress when compared to mothers who only use alcohol, mothers who only use cigarettes, and mothers who use neither cigarettes nor alcohol.

Two-hundred and eighty-two mothers of adolescents between the ages of 12 and 16 years old participated in the current study (M_age=40.87). Ninety-two mothers were non-smokers/non-hazardous alcohol users, thirty mothers were hazardous alcohol users who did not smoke, thirty-six mothers used cigarettes but did not use alcohol hazardously, and 121 mothers reported using cigarettes, and using alcohol hazardously.  Participants were given the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT; Saunders et al., 1993), Smoking History Questionnaire (SHQ; Guillot et al., 2015), and Family Stress-Response to Stress Questionnaire (Family Stress RSQ; Connor-Smith et al., 2000).

            A one-way ANOVA with bootstrapping was run to examine the effect of maternal dual user status on parental stress. Results of the ANOVA indicated that there was a significant effect of maternal dual user status on maternal parenting stress, F(3, 278) = 29.22, p < .001. Specifically, pairwise comparisons indicated that dual user mothers (M = 33.09) reported significantly more parenting stress than non-users (M = 22.18,  p < .001), than hazardous alcohol users only (M = 22.77, p < .001), and mothers use cigarettes, but were not hazardous alcohol users (M = 28.36, p = .010).

            Results of the current study suggested that mothers who are dual users of both cigarettes and hazardous alcohol users report higher levels of parenting stress than mothers who report using neither cigarettes or using alcohol hazardously, mothers who endorse only using cigarettes, or mothers who endorse only using alcohol hazardously. Results will be discussed in terms of how maternal dual use of alcohol and cigarette use may be related to parenting stress among mothers of adolescents.