Psychological distress in childhood trauma survivors who abuse drugs

Abstract

The relationships between the level of childhood maltreatment and current psychological distress were examined in a community sample of 676 substance abusing men and women using a validated self-report instrument (the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire) designed to measure physical, emotional, and sexual abuse and physical and emotional neglect. Current levels of self-reported psychological distress/symptoms were measured using a 53-item Brief Symptom Inventory. Prevalence of early trauma ranged from 44% for emotional neglect to 65% for sexual abuse. The severity of all forms of childhood maltreatment were directly associated with current psychological distress.

Associations between childhood maltreatment and sex work in a cohort of drug-using youth

“…A high prevalence of abuse was found, with rates ranging from 32.4% to 93%. These rates are similar to a recent, methodologically comparable study of adult drug users (Medrano et al, 2002). Further, two types of childhood maltreatment, sexual abuse and emotional abuse, were found to be independently associated with sex work after controlling for socio-demographic variables.…”

“…For the analysis, we chose to collapse these four trauma levels into two: none/low, and moderate/severe. We justified this decision based on previous studies involving drug-using populations which have shown that dichotomizing abuse into 'abuse' versus 'no abuse' produces few significant findings (Medrano, Hatch, Zule, & Desmond, 2002). There is also a three-item minimization and denial scale used to detect underreporting of maltreatment, and participants were excluded from analysis if they scored above pre-determined cut-offs.…”

Drug use and childhood-, military- and post-military trauma exposure among women and men veterans

“…As anticipated, trauma exposure occurring at various points across the lifespan (before, during, and after military service) had effects on depressive and traumatic symptoms (see Table 4). These results are similar to the prior literature on civilians (Medrano et al, 2002) and veterans (Koola et al, 2013) in that childhood trauma was associated with adult psychological distress. The average number of pre-and post-military traumas each also had small direct effects on drug use, controlling for other variables.…”

Effects of adverse childhood experiences on the association between intranasal oxytocin and social stress reactivity among individuals with cocaine dependence

“…Previous studies indicate that childhood maltreatment is associated with earlier initiation of illicit drug use (Nomura et al, 2012) and that child abuse and maltreatment is more prevalent among cocaine-dependent individuals compared to the general population (Medrano et al, 2002). Studies of cocaine-dependent individuals have found a significant association between exposure to childhood maltreatment and psychological distress in response to aversive psychosocial stimuli.…”