The correlation between traumatic experiences and psychoactive substance use among adolescents: Implications for educational practice

Abstract

Despite its importance, childhood trauma is often not recognized as а pathogenic fact that affects the (de)formation of personality and influences the development of various psychological difficulties and bad habits, including the likelihood of future psychoactive substance abuse. This study aimed to examine the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and substance misuse in adolescence. The research was conducted on a sample of 380 secondary school students (aged 14 to 19 years) from Vojvodina. The questionnaires used included: the Questionnaire of Sociodemographic Characteristics and Psychoactive Substance Uses, which was designed for the purpose of this research, and the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ, Bernstein & Fink, 1998). The research employed the methods of descriptive statistics, Spearman’s correlation coefficient, and the chi-squared test. A total of 10.2% of respondents used psychoactive substances less than once a week, 3.2% used psychoactive substances once a week, and 1.8% used psychoactive substances every day. In terms of traumatic experiences, only 6.6% of respondents reported having no or minimal trauma, the majority (62.9%) had a low-to-moderate level of traumatization, while nearly one in three respondents (30.5%) exhibited a moderate-to-severe or severe-to-extreme level of traumatization. A significant correlation was found between the intensity of each form of traumatization and the frequency of psychoactive substance use, with the correlations being most pronounced for emotional abuse (r = .38), sexual abuse (r = .35), and total traumatization (r = .34). The results highlight the importance of preventing drug abuse in the student population, as well as the need to sensitize and educate teachers and school counselors to ensure the timely recognition of traumatization in adolescents, and help prevent or mitigate psychoactive substance use problems and other mental health issues.

Keywords

• adolescence
• trauma
• abuse
• psychoactive substances
• prevention