Early-life trauma, negative and positive life events, compulsive sexual behavior disorder and risky sexual action tendencies among young women with substance use disorder

Yaniv Efrati, Keren Goldman, Katya Levin, Paola Rosca

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

8 Scopus citations

Abstract

Although significant advances have been made in the field to date, gender-based issues for women remain a neglected area in much of substance abuse research. In the current study we examined two gaps in the literature: the co-occurrence of compulsive sexual behavior disorder (CSBD) and risky sexual action tendencies among women with substance use disorders (SUDs), and their shared antecedents in the form of early life adversity and negative life events. The sample comprised 132 women of whom 62 had substance use disorder (drug and alcohol) and 70 were healthy controls. Each participant completed self-report measures of drug abuse and alcoholism, compulsive sexual behavior disorder and risky sexual action tendencies as well as early-life trauma and negative and positive life events. Results indicate that young women with substance use disorder have higher compulsive sexual behavior disorder symptoms and more prevalent risky sexual action tendencies than controls. Compulsive sexual behavior was also found to mediate the association between substance use and risky sexual action tendencies. In addition, all addictive behaviors were linked with emotional abuse at childhood but not with other types of abuse. Conversely, negative life events in adulthood were only linked with CSBD and not with substance use. The findings provide deeper insights into the comorbidity of addictive behaviors and an opportunity for developing more effective treatments for women who suffer from these addictions.

Original languageEnglish
Article number107379
JournalAddictive Behaviors
Volume133
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 2022

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Elsevier Ltd

Funding

This work was supported by a grant from the 'Israel Authority for Prevention of Violence, Alcohol and Drug Abuse' to Dr. Efrati. The funding source had no involvement in the study design, collection, analysis or interpretation of the data, writing the manuscript, or the decision to submit the paper for publication.

FundersFunder number
Alcohol and Drug Abuse
Israel Authority for Prevention of Violence

    Keywords

    • Compulsive Sexual Behaviors
    • Early-life trauma
    • Risky sexual behavior
    • Substance use

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