The effect of childhood trauma and resilience on clinical aspect of alcohol use disorder

Alcoholism is one of the most common psychological sequelae of childhood trauma. However, some individuals develop effective coping strategies and they succeed in some areas of life, such as social relations and work. This positive aspect can be explained by resilience. The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of childhood trauma and resilience on clinical feature of alcohol use disorder. The study included 100 male patients who were referred to Ege University Addiction Treatment Unit and were diagnosed with alcohol use disorder. None of the patients had comorbid psychiatric disorder. Sociodemographic data, alcohol use characteristics were obtained. Childhood trauma (Childhood Trauma Questionnaire), resilience (Resilience Scale for Adults), severity of alcohol use disorder (Severity of Alcohol Dependence Questionnaire and Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test) were evaluated. The mean age of the participants was 43.3±10.6. Of all the participants, 64% (n=64) were married, 70% (n=70) had a job with regular income. The onset of problematic alcohol use was at the age of 27.4±9.9, mean duration of alcohol use was 15.9±10.7 years and median of the longest sobriety period was 2 months. No correlation was found between resilience and early onset of alcohol use, problematic alcohol use and duration of sobriety. Resilience of the participants without a history of suicide attempt was higher than the participants with a history of suicide attempt. There was a negative correlation between resilience and severity of alcohol use disorder. The same correlation was maintained in the group with a history of childhood trauma, but it was not detected in the group without a history of childhood trauma. The regression model showed that the severity of disorder increased by 0.18 units when resilience increased by one unit, and that 18% of the change in disorder severity was explained by resilience and age, education and childhood trauma did not contribute to this model. These results show that interventions to increase resilience may positively affect treatment process in alcohol use disorder and reduce severity of the disorder. Key words: Alcohol use disorder; Childhood trauma; Resilience