Predicting addiction potential on the basis of early traumatic events, dissociative experiences, and suicide ideation

BACKGROUND: There is a great deal of medical literature suggesting that substance use disorder is a serious clinical concern, affecting general population and associated with considerable economic, societal, and personal costs.

OBJECTIVES: This study sought to clarify the relationship between early trauma, dissociative experience, and suicide ideation as predictive factors of active and passive addiction potential (A/PAP) in high-school students.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: Three hundred students with the mean age of 15.72 y were selected via multistage random sampling. All participants were asked to complete Iranian addiction potential scale, early trauma inventory, dissociative experiences scale, and Beck's suicide ideation scale. Analyzing data was done using canonical correlation.

RESULTS: Structural coefficients showed that the pattern of high scores in A/PAP correlates with the pattern of high scores in early trauma, dissociative experience and suicide ideation. The findings of the study showed that the combination of low A/PAP can probably decrease the likelihood of early trauma, dissociative experience and suicide ideation.

CONCLUSIONS: Early trauma, dissociative experience, and suicide ideation can predict A/PAP and explain the considerable variance of survival index.