[Risk/protective factors, and their indices in research on adolescents problem behaviours.]

Description and explanation of adolescent problem behaviours are in a great part based on risk and protective factor analysis. Research on these factors provides many important data, but due to diversity and complexity of the variables analyzed, it is difficult to summarize their results. One way to deal with this problem is the utilization of risk and protective factor indices, which shows individuals' exposure to the sum of risk and protective factors.In this article eight studies explaining adolescent problem behaviours (mainly: substance use) based on risk/protective factor indices are discussed.The review indicates that study results are strongly influenced by authors' arbitraly decisions on risk/protective factors definitions, the initial list of studied variables, way of determining significant intensity of factors. The most undisputed is the result indicating that after controlling for other variables, both indices (risk and protective) are significant in cross-sectional explanations of problem behaviours. This finding strongly supports the argument for enhancement of protective factors in preventive interventions. However, the main disadvantage of studies based on indices is the "averaging" of importance of various factors, which makes it difficult to assess their specific impact on problem behaviours.