The Chinese Youth Attitudes toward Young Drug Users scale: an initial scale development and refinement

Abstract

Introduction and aims: Little is known about adolescents' perspectives of young drug users, especially in the Chinese context. This study aimed to develop a scale to measure Chinese youth attitudes toward young drug users.

Design and methods: Initially, a total of 26 non-at-risk and at-risk adolescents (15 male and 11 female) aged 13 to 20 years were interviewed in five separate focus group sessions to explore their general views of young drug users. At-risk youths recruited in this study were adolescents who previously had contact with the juvenile justice system. The responses of these 26 adolescents were documented, and subsequently 25 items were generated out of the respondents' common themes. These 25 items were then surveyed in a group of 137 secondary school-aged adolescents (68 male and 69 female), ranging 13 to 17 years, to examine its underlying factor structure for further scale refinement, with the use of the exploratory factor analysis.

Results: A five-factor structure with 12 items was ultimately selected for the Chinese Youth Attitudes toward Young Drug Users (CYAYDU) scale.

Discussion and conclusions: This newly developed scale is anticipated to provide utility in the social work settings, especially for youth social workers to assist in providing effective social services to young drug users. Despite the promising strength of the CYAYDU scale, further validation with large sample size is needed.