Childhood maltreatment trauma: a comparison between patients in treatment for substance use disorders and patients in mental health treatment

Abstract

Background: While previous research has found strong associations between childhood maltreatment trauma and substance use disorders (SUDs), the role of possible moderating effects of gender and mediating effects of psychopathology and SUD is unclear.Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate differences in self-reported childhood maltreatment trauma, general psychological distress, and post-traumatic stress symptoms between 112 patients in treatment for substance use disorders (SUD group) and 112 matched controls with mild to moderate mental health disorders (comparison group).Methods: Childhood maltreatment trauma was measured by the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire – Short Form (CTQ-SF). General psychological distress was measured by the Symptom Checklist-90 – Revised (SCL-90-R), and post-traumatic stress symptoms were measured by the Impact of Event Scale – Revised (IES-R).Results: The SUD group reported more severe childhood maltreatment trauma than the comparison group. Females in the SUD group reported more severe and various forms of trauma compared to males. The SUD group reported higher mean scores on the SCL-90-R, but the proportions of people with caseness scores on the IES-R and the SCL-90-R were similar in the two samples. The SUD group reported more avoidance symptoms than the comparison group.Conclusion: This study adds further evidence to the repeatedly found strong associations between childhood maltreatment trauma and SUD, implying that the prevention of childhood maltreatment trauma may reduce the occurrence of SUD. Furthermore, patients with SUD should be screened for childhood maltreatment trauma, and the results should be applied in trauma-informed as well as trauma-focused interventions aimed to help this population. The association appears to be particularly strong for female substance users.

Influence of Severity of Type and Timing of Retrospectively Reported Childhood Maltreatment on Female Amygdala and Hippocampal Volume

“…Each random forest model consisted of 500 trees with randomly selected 4 variables available at each split. To define these hyperparameters (i.e., number of trees, number of variable at each split) we systematically varied the number of trees (100-1000), and number of variables selected for decision making (3)(4)(5) and tested the model accuracy with respect to the out-of-bag sample (re-defined during each iteration step). To ensure model-stability, the random forest regression was re-iterated 10 times with varying seeds.…”

Relational recovery in co-occurring conditions: a qualitative study of first-person experiences

“…This complexity may be understood in light of adverse relational experiences. Mental health and substance use disorders correlate with traumatic experiences in childhood (Dovran et al , 2016), and women with substance use disorder have a higher risk of being exposed to traumatic events (Rasmussen et al , 2018). Several participants in this study, both men and women, described experiences of child abuse and neglect, bullying and social exclusion during childhood and such experiences had led to a lack of trust in other people.…”

Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form: Evaluation of Factor Structure and Measurement Invariance

“…The CTQ-SF has been used clinically both to diagnose and treat individuals with trauma (Hagborg et al, 2022;Horak et al, 2021;Nakajima et al, 2022;Rasmussen et al, 2018;Zhang et al, 2020). Scores from the CTQ-SF have been shown to positively correlate with confirmed reports of abuse, neglect, and violence (Bernstein et al, 1997;Liebschutz et al, 2018;Saadi et al, 2022).…”