Brief interventions for young adults who use drugs: The moderating effects of resilience and trauma

Abstract

Among participants in an intervention clinical trial (N=602), we examined resilience as a moderator of substance use outcomes by intervention condition and between participants with and without severe traumatic stress (STS). Eligibility included men and women ages 18-39 with recent multidrug use; drug treatment enrollees were excluded. Outcome measures were past 90-day frequencies of substance use and abstinence. Putative moderators were measured using the Resilience Research Centre's Adult Resilience Measure (RRC-ARM) and the Traumatic Stress Scale from the Global Appraisal of Individual Needs (GAIN). Analyses employed hierarchical linear models. High resilience predicted better substance use outcomes, and the ordering of intervention effects for high resilience participants was stepwise by intervention condition intensity. Participants with low resilience scores had poorer outcomes, and those outcomes were largely unaffected by intervention condition. Participants without STS experienced the interventions similarly to the overall sample. Regardless of the level of resilience, however, participants with STS did not benefit from the interventions. The findings point to the importance of screening for both resilience and traumatic stress prior to intervention to maximize the impact of brief interventions for substance users, and also to link those needing more intensive approaches to additional services and professional care.

Changes in Young Adult Substance use during COVID-19 as a Function of ACEs, Depression, Prior Substance use and Resilience

“…Most often, and consistent with its conceptualization in the current study, resilience is operationalized as a trait that moderates the negative effect of stress and promotes adaptation, allowing the individual to successfully cope with change or misfortune 39 . Indeed, resilience has been shown to moderate the effects of stress in general, 40 – 42 and specifically with regard to substance use 43 – 45 . Resilience has also been shown to buffer the effects of risk factors for other negative outcomes (e.g.…”

“…39 Indeed, resilience has been shown to moderate the effects of stress in general, [40][41][42] and specifically with regard to substance use. [43][44][45] Resilience has also been shown to buffer the effects of risk factors for other negative outcomes (e.g. depression, anxiety) during COVID-19.…”

Personality Disorders, Risky Behaviors, and Adversity: The Moderating Role of Resilience

“…An overall scale score was calculated by summing each participant's responses (a ¼ .91 in this sample). Resiliency was normally distributed in this sample and had a similar distribution to other samples (see Table 1), such as substance using young adults (Kurtz et al, 2019) and adolescent offenders (Brodersen, 2013).…”

Measuring Resilience in the Context of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence: A Novel Application of the Adult Resilience Measure (ARM)

“… Liebenberg and Moore (2008) utilized the ARM in their research on Irish survivors of clerical institutional abuse. The measure has also been used, inter alia , in a study exploring resilience as a moderator of substance use outcomes in the context of young adults ( Kurtz et al, 2019 ) and in a study about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in war veterans and civilians ( Wall & Lowe, 2020 ). This research is the first to use the ARM in relation to victims-/survivors of conflict-related sexual violence—and the first to apply it to a comparative study of BiH, Colombia, and Uganda.…”