NCJ Number
240769
Journal
Child Abuse & Neglect Volume: 36 Issue: 5 Dated: May 2012 Pages: 438-448
Date Published
May 2012
Length
11 pages
Annotation
The research that has shown childhood maltreatment to be prevalent in the life histories of substance-abusing youth has mostly focused on maltreatment that consists of sexual or physical abuse; the current study extended the scope of such research to include psychological maltreatment among the factors that may be linked to juvenile substance abuse.
Abstract
The study found a significant link between the severity of substance-use problems and emotional abuse and emotional neglect. The correlations between substance-use problem severity and the individual form of maltreatment involving interpersonal violence did not reach significance. Neither did the connection between substance-use problem severity and witnessing domestic violence. These findings are consistent with those of a body of research that identifies the detrimental effect of psychological maltreatment. These findings suggest that focusing on the features and effects of psychological maltreatment may be important in assisting substance-abusing youth in achieving successful treatment outcomes. Data were collected via self-reports from 216 youth (144 males and 72 females) entering an outpatient treatment program for substance-abusing youth ages 16-24 years. The battery of instruments used for the self-reporting were the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test, the Drug Abuse Screening Test, and the Traumatic Antecedents Questionnaire. The latter instrument measured exposure to physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, emotional neglect, and witnessing domestic violence. The associations between each form of maltreatment and severity of substance-use problems were explored using bivariate correlations. Linear regression was then used to examine the relative contributions of each form of maltreatment in the prediction of substance-use problem severity. 4 tables and 86 references