Childhood Trauma Linked to Substance Abuse Later in Life

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/871521

There is an association between childhood trauma, especially sexual trauma, and the misuse of prescription pain pills and injectable drugs, according to a large nationwide sample that followed subjects from adolescence into adulthood.

The more types of trauma that subjects experienced during childhood, the greater the odds of pain pill misuse, and those odds increase with increasing age, said Kelly Quinn, PhD, assistant professor of population health at the NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City.

“That speaks to the fact that childhood trauma potentially has down-the-road consequences that may not manifest immediately, but could have implications for the later course of health,” she told Medscape Medical News.

Dr Quinn presented the research here at the American Public Health Association 2016 Annual Meeting.