When it comes to serious issues surrounding drugs and alcohol, most American teenagers prefer receiving advice from their mothers, according to a recent Penn State study.

The study, conducted by Michelle Miller-Day, assistant professor of communication arts and sciences, involved 67 U.S. teenagers of different races between the ages of 11 and 17.

Miller-Day said she found that a majority of the respondents said their mothers, not other family members or friends, were their primary source of information about alcohol, tobacco and other drugs (ATOD).

"Kids prefer to talk to moms," she said. "Historically moms have dealt with interpersonal issues, although family composition is changing. For example, today there are more single dads with custody [of children]."

It is a gender issue, said Stephen Shetler, an addiction specialist at the Center for Counseling and Psychological Services.

"[In society's view] women are able to communicate better, and that goes with families too," he said.

Miller-Day said that teens who talked to one or both of their parents about ATOD were more likely to talk about it later with their friends. "It's about having open communication -- not demonizing the issue but finding information and having a game plan," she said.

It is this sense of "open communication" within families that is vital to helping adolescents make effective decisions in difficult situations, she said.

"The bottom line is that a close relationship and open communication with a parent is a protective factor," she said.

She said talking to a parent would probably have more of an impact on substance abuse and less of an impact on experimentation and moderate use, especially once the teen gets to college and becomes more exposed to ATOD.

"Basically the kids will become better at decision-making and they should be able to make that distinction [between use and abuse]," she said. "It is the idea of empowering students to make their own mature, informed decisions."

She added that for this communication to be effective, it must involve an open, two-way conversation about issues surrounding the substances, not just the parent imposing sanctions on the child.

She said what surprised her most was the fact that gender did not seem to make much of a difference in the matter.

"I thought it would be true for women [that they prefer to talk to their mothers], but it also turned out to be true for guys," she said.

Similarly, race did not seem to be a factor in the teens' preferences.

"There was not a whole lot of difference between Caucasians and African-Americans," she said.

However, she said cultural differences would probably have become apparent if the study had been extended to teenagers outside the United States.

"In Eastern countries like China, the kids don't have that independent nature," she said. "If you [do something wrong], you shame the whole community, not just yourself, so how it is handled in families in other cultures is probably really different."

She is currently developing a voluntary online survey that Penn State students, as well as their parents, will be able to fill out.

"We want to find out the content of the talks," she said. "There are all these ads that say, 'Talk to your kids about drugs,' but there's not a lot of information about how to talk to them, or if parents actually are talking to them. [We want to] identify the strategies that parents use."

Ann Dodd, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Communication Arts and Sciences, has been working with Miller-Day as a research assistant. She is currently helping Miller-Day develop the online survey, which she said will be administered next month.

"We're going into communication arts and sciences classes, probably [SPCOM] 100A, to recruit students who want extra credit," she said. "It is absolutely voluntary. The students would complete a web-based survey and then see if their mother or father would also be willing to complete it."

She said they will only analyze the paired student-parent responses to get the most accurate results, but she expects many parents will want to participate. The results could help parents with issues of drugs and alcohol in ways that are more specific than telling their teens to "just say no," she said.

"The study is important because we are getting information that will have a practical application," she said.