Recently, the prevalence of marijuana use among teens, particularly adolescent females, has escalated to the point where it has become the foremost public health issue. Examining the potential consequences of marijuana consumption has become crucial, considering the alterations in policies and shifts in societal views towards marijuana users, particularly among vulnerable populations like teens (Hinckley et al., 2022). However, despite the lack of a definitive cause-and-effect relationship, there is growing concern about the potential elevated prevalence of depression among adolescent females who regularly use marijuana in the northeastern region of the United States, specifically within the age range of 13 to 15.
The significance of this subject cannot be overstated, as its capacity to engender psychological distress and induce feelings of depression among adolescent females cannot be disregarded. Adolescence is a period characterized by significant transformations in social, emotional, and physical domains, making teenagers particularly susceptible to the effects of substance usage (CDC, 2021). Alcohol is a widely consumed and hazardous substance for recreational purposes. On the other hand, cannabis, which is widely recognized as the most prevalent illicit substance, has garnered considerable attention in academic studies due to its potential impact on the psychological well-being of adolescents.
The current corpus of empirical research pertaining to the association between adolescent cannabis consumption and depression does not yield consistent findings. Several studies have demonstrated a significant correlation between the regular consumption of marijuana and an increased probability of experiencing depression. Conversely, other individuals fail to perceive any correlation, let alone the prospective safeguarding impacts linked to the utilization of the substance (Pacheco-Colón et al., 2019). The lack of specificity in most literature data raises concerns regarding the incorporation of gender and environmental factors in research investigations aimed at determining optimal mental health outcomes.
However, teens, especially girls, often face unparalleled problems and susceptibility to the use of marijuana. Studies have demonstrated the fact that males and females have different reactions to the drug, especially in terms of the level of chemicals being affected and psychology. Some of the studies begin with the proposition that women are more at risk when it comes to the adverse effects of cannabis on mental health (White et al., 2022). In addition, the experience of becoming a teenage girl who is depressed will be different based on her genes, friends, and society. Sometimes, these variables will increase the chances of having depression, and sometimes, they will be the reason for not being depressed.
In addition to this, the link will be affected by the cities’ distribution, economic status, and cultural norms. The study of these dynamics is made extra intriguing by the noticeable dissimilarities in economy and culture found in the Northeastern USA. The present work will accomplish the primary objective, which is to bust the myths about the interaction between marijuana use and depression in the unique sociocultural setting of this area through a comprehensive research study focusing exclusively on teenage girls in this area (Geoffrion, 2022). The principal objective of this study is to address the gap in the existing literature regarding the long-term outcomes of daily cannabis use on depression rates in teenage girls from the Northeast. To shape the prevention and early intervention programs appropriately, there should be an understanding of the gender-related and regional variations in the relationship between the use of marijuana in adolescence and the effect on mental health.
To ensure that the results of this study are correct and applicable, the volunteers must be able to. Another girl band from the Northeast, ages 13 to 15, will also be included in this group. By using purposeful sampling techniques, we will be able to reserve individuals belonging to all social ranks, races, nationalities, and geographic locations. Through targeted sampling techniques, we will recruit a variety of participants from local community centers, schools, and the web to gain firsthand insight into the engaging activities and daily life of a typical teen in the community. Since this large sample study will ensure a sample size that offers sufficient statistical strength, the investigators will be able to detect any possible associations between cannabis use and depression. Also, the subgroup analysis would permit clarification of the other factors connected with or explaining the outcomes (Klar & Leeper, 2019). It will refer to the area of the city of New England, class distinction, racial and cultural groups, and more than two cycles of change. I plan to research a sample that can generalize the results to all teen girls in the Northeast in order to verify the external validity of my findings.
The Adapted Monitoring the Future (MTF) questionnaire will assess the extent and quantity of marijuana consumption. To be able to give a more detailed account of the behavior of teenage girls as presented by the manner in which they consume on a daily basis, this survey has specific questions about the frequency of marijuana use and the volume of it every session (Prais, 2021). Implemented and validated instruments like the Beck Depression Inventory for Youth (BDI-Y) or the Patient Health Questionnaire for Adolescents (PHQ-A) can combine interviews with students and parents to measure their depression symptoms. Such tools capture a range of aspects of the symptoms of depression and produce information and reliable outcomes (Ding et al., 2021).
The current research will investigate the proportion of Northeastern female students who present with daily marijuana use and concurrent depression among this population using a cross-sectional study design. On top of the project website, locations of local community centers as well as educational institutions will also offer information on where recruitment is happening. As per the requirement, we will notify the parents of the participants or their legal guardians to sign the informed consent agreement forms with prior consent. There will be a self-administered questionnaire administered to the participants in order to know how much marijuana they consume, how severe their depression symptoms are, their age, and their gender. Other demographic characteristics will also be part of the survey. Anonymization is aimed at maintaining privacy and resulting in less response bias through the data collection process. We employ descriptive statistics, bivariate correlations, multiple regression analysis, and mediation or moderation analyses in the dataset to determine the association between marijuana consumption by teen girls aged 13 to 17 years in the Northeast and depression rates. These explorations offer deep knowledge of the factors that result in depression in specific subgroups and thus lead to the well-being of humanity.
The focus of this study is on the relationship between girl depression rates and daily marijuana use, which takes place in both boys and girls who fall in this region between 13 and 19. The application of regression and correlation analysis will be helpful in determining how strong and in what nature the association’s correlation is after variables relevant for confounding and demographic adjustment are accounted for. Subgroup analysis, besides the main moderator, can still reveal other modifying variables, such as age, educational level, and social status. Furthermore, assessment can be achieved using mediation analysis, where researchers target studying mechanisms that would explain the connections that have been observed.
A description of the sample’s demographics, including age, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and the Northeast’s geographical location, might be the subject of a descriptive statistic. The dominant frequency and degree of marijuana use among teenage girls living in the specified sub-regions between ages 13 and 15 will be demonstrated by descriptive analysis and will have demographic variation. The data will also include severe and frequent depressive symptoms among the study population, which will be illustrated by means of descriptive data such as mean depression scores and statistical spread across different levels of depression such as mild, moderate, and severe degrees of depression (Mishra et al., 2019). Moreover, descriptive statistics are prerequisites to inferential statistics, which aim to examine if there is a correlation between marijuana use and depression.
For the purpose of identifying a link between depression ratings and marijuana usage, statistical techniques will be used. Thus, the power and whether the relationship is harmonious will be known. Bivariate correlation analysis could be used in situations where clusters of expected symptoms appear based on the magnitude of the regularity of marijuana usage (Mishra et al., 2019). The magnitude of changes in one variable relative to the other changes is proportional to the correlation coefficients, whose expansion is the essence of Pearson’s r and Spearman’s rho. It is worth mentioning that the reversal of this connotation denotes the opposite. Contrary to the negative one, which purports a connection between increased marijuana use and a higher incidence of severe depression, the positive correlation demonstrates that there is a link between heavy marijuana consumption and a higher occurrence of severe depression. A hypothesis regarding the extent of the connection between the occasional smoking of marijuana and the depression rate among girls aged 12–18 from the Northeast will be presented, along with a statistical test for significance that may prove that associations are indeed significant.
We will use a large statistical model in the context of multivariate regression analysis to look at how the daily dose of the substance affects the depression scale. This is in addition to using different mediating factors. The study’s regression model will hopefully incorporate one independent variable, such as age, ethnicity, social status, and family history of mental health issues. We are now able to separate the issue of daily marijuana usage from depression ratings, as possible factors considered include demographics and other confounding factors (Mishra et al., 2019). The study will delineate the specific means through which marijuana plays and extricates depression to the level it is among Northeast adolescent girls.
One way to focus on how demographic factors modify the relationship between marijuana use and depression in teenage girls from the Northeast region of the United States is to explore whether there is a difference in the magnitude and direction of association between marijuana use and depression amongst female adolescents based on the age, the ethnic difference, and the individual’s socioeconomic backgrounds (Mishra et al., 2019). In this regard, clairvoyance may facilitate the discovery of mental health determinants that do not typically intersect with smoked marijuana.
Apart from smoking marijuana, it is also exciting to study how stressors and coping mechanisms may, as potentially mediating factors, affect the relationship between depression and marijuana usage. We hope that this investigation will help illuminate the molecular processes that are involved in the relationship between cannabis and symptoms of a depressive nature. As an instance, it will focus on the fact that marijuana utilization can be both caused and followed by adolescent girls’ higher risk of depression, which may be the consequence of high-stress levels and unhealthy coping techniques (Mishra et al., 2019).In order to minimize the possible influences on mental health as a result of customized mediation, this study endeavors to shed fresh light on the possible obstacles to leisure and medical cannabis consumption.
In conclusion, this study aims at the urgent issue of a possible relationship between daily pot usage and the rates of depression among teenage girls who live in the Northeast, with their average age being 13–15. This study will target narrowing down the zone excising a specific population group through the application of an executed methodology and statistical survey for the addition of research in the field already in existence. Suppose the theory turns out to be true. In that case, it will strongly underline how significant it is to gain attention to targeting the girls and make it the only way of treating them to reduce their development of depression. Alternatively, if the hypothesis is not proven, it would stress the relevance of exploring additional factors that might become a contributing factor to depression symptoms among this population. A good study may affect the legitimacy of current public health programs and guidelines, which are aimed at the mental health of North Eastern adolescent girls and elsewhere.
CDC. (2021, September 8). Teens | Health Effects | Marijuana | CDC. Www.cdc.gov.
Ding, W. E., Tan, K. A., Fam, J. Y., Mukhtar, F., Lye, M. S., Awang, H., & Munawar, K. (2021). Psychometric evaluation of the Malay version of the multidimensional Beck Youth Inventories-2 (BYI-2 Malay): Measuring self-concept, anxiety, depression, anger, and disruptive behavior among adolescents in sheltered homes. Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities.
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