Childhood emotional abuse, negative emotion-driven impulsivity, and alcohol use in young adulthood.
Childhood emotional abuse has been linked to problematic alcohol use in later life but there is a paucity of empirically based knowledge about the developmental pathways linking emotional abuse and alcohol use in young adulthood. Using a community sample of young individuals aged 18-25 (N=268; female 52%), we performed structural equation modeling to investigate whether emotional abuse influences alcohol use through urgent personality trait and to determine pathways for these effects in a multivariate context. We also examined variations in these pathways by four different alcohol use outcomes including frequency of alcohol use, binge drinking, alcohol-related problems, and alcohol use disorders (AUD). The present study found that emotional abuse was related to urgency, which in turn influenced four types of alcohol use. Urgency may play a significant role in linking childhood maltreatment to alcohol use in young adulthood.
School of Social Work, Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University, USA.
Sunny H
SH
Shin
School of Social Welfare, Soongsil University, South Korea; School of Social Work, Boston University, USA.
Sungkyu
S
Lee
School of Social Work, Boston University, USA.
Sae-Mi
SM
Jeon
Cancer Center, University of Hawaii, USA.
Thomas A
TA
Wills
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D054523:Adult Survivors of Child Abuse / Q000523:psychology*; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000523:psychology*; D019973:Alcohol-Related Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000523:psychology; D063425:Binge Drinking / Q000523:psychology; D002648:Child; D002649:Child Abuse / Q000523:psychology*; D016241:Child of Impaired Parents / Q000523:psychology; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007175:Impulsive Behavior; D008297:Male; D011446:Prospective Studies; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000209:etiology; D055815:Young Adult
Alcohol use and misuse; Alcohol use disorder; Binge drinking; Child maltreatment; Emotional abuse; Young adults