Friendship and Family Influence on Adolescent Substance Use: A School-Based Qualitative Study Using Focus Group Discussion

Abstract

Adolescent substance use is a major public health challenge, with friends and family consistently implicated as key social risk factors. Most existing research, however, relies on predefined variable associations and provides limited insight into how adolescents themselves perceive and experience these influences in their everyday contexts, a gap particularly relevant in Indonesian urban settings where collectivist norms shape social dynamics. This study aimed to identify how friends and family are perceived as social risk factors for substance use among junior high school students in Semarang, Indonesia. An exploratory qualitative design was employed, using four focus group discussions with 40 students (aged 13–15) from a purposively selected public junior high school. Data were analyzed inductively using Braun and Clarke's six-phase thematic analysis. Two overarching themes emerged, friendship influence and family influence, each structured through three sub-themes forming a passive, active, coercive typology. Passive influence (observational modeling) operated without explicit invitation and was often unrecognized by adolescents as risk exposure. Active influence involved direct invitations and persistent persuasion embedded in peer group membership, while coercive influence encompassed mockery, intimidation, and forced initiation. Family influence, though secondary, included parental modeling, permissive access, and sibling coercion as distinct pathways to substance initiation. This study introduces a passive, active, coercive typology that extends beyond binary peer pressure frameworks, offering contextually grounded qualitative evidence from an Indonesian school-based setting. The findings call for prevention strategies that differentiate across influence levels and integrate school, family, and community components rather than relying on generic life skills curricula.