AUTHOR=Basedow Lukas A. , Kuitunen-Paul Sören , Roessner Veit , Golub Yulia 

TITLE=Traumatic Events and Substance Use Disorders in Adolescents

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychiatry

VOLUME=Volume 11 - 2020

YEAR=2020

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00559

DOI=10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00559

ISSN=1664-0640

ABSTRACT=Objectives: Adolescents with substance use disorders (SUD) frequently report traumatic events (TEs) and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This study aimed to assess whether lifetime prevalence rates of TEs and PTSD are related to SUD severity in adolescent psychiatric patients.
Methods: We analyzed N = 114 self-reports of treatment-seeking German adolescents aged 12 to 18 years, who visited a specialized SUD outpatient unit. Standardized questionnaires were applied to assess SUD severity, the number of TEs and DSM-IV PTSD criteria. 
Results:  Patients fulfilling PTSD criteria (28% of the total sample) had a higher Drug Use Disorders Identification Test (DUDIT) score compared to non-PTSD patients with TEs (p < .001), and compared to adolescents without TEs or PTSD (p = .003). Additionally, SUD severity was positively associated with the number of TEs and the number of intrusion, hyperarousal, and avoidance symptoms (all r = .33 to .48, all p < .01).
Discussion: Adolescent patients with SUD reported 3-times higher rates of TEs, and a 5-times higher prevalence of PTSD following TEs, than the general adolescent population. Adolescent SUD patients with PTSD reported more severe substance use problems than patients without PTSD – regardless of previous TEs. Longitudinal studies are needed in order to investigate the temporal relationship between TEs, PTSD and SUD.