Five-Factor Model of Personality and Addiction, Psychiatric, and AIDS Risk Severity in Pregnant and Postpartum Cocaine Misusers

• NCJ Number: 165280
• Journal: Substance Use and Misuse Volume: 32 Issue: 1 Dated: (January 1997) Pages: 25-41
• Author(s): S A Ball; R S Schottenfeld
• Date Published: 1997
• Length: 17 pages
• Grant Number(s): R18-DA-06-915-01
• Sponsoring Agency: National Institute on Drug Abuse
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

The relationship between addiction severity, psychiatric symptoms, AIDS risk behaviors, and an alternative five-factor measure of personality, the Zuckerman-Kuhlman Personality Questionnaire, was assessed in 92 cocaine-misusing pregnant and postpartum women in an inner-city outpatient treatment program in New Haven, Connecticut.

Abstract

The women were recruited for participation in the study at a prenatal appointment or at delivery where their cocaine use was detected by self-report or urine tests. Most women lived in the inner city, were poorly educated, and lived in poverty and experienced physical, sexual, or emotional abuse as children, adolescents, or adults. The women were typically involved with men who were drug users and generally unsupportive. Study results showed that three personality traits (neuroticism-anxiety, impulsive sensation seeking, and aggression-hostility) were significantly related to different subscales of the Addiction Severity Index, the Beck Depression Inventory, various psychiatric symptoms, and high-HIV-risk sexual activity. Of these traits, neuroticism-anxiety seemed to be the most powerful predictor of symptom severity. Scores on personality dimensions were not related to recency, frequency, amount, or duration of drug use or to treatment outcomes. 33 references and 7 tables