Research in the area of illicit substance use remains preoccupied with describing and analyzing the risks of people who use drugs (PWUD), however more recently there has been a drive to use a strengths-based or resilience approach as an alternative to investigating drug use. This leads us to ask: what can be known about PWUD from the point of view of resilience? The objective of this scoping review is to analyze how the concept of resilience is defined, operationalized, and applied in substance use research. Popular health, social science, psychology, and inter-disciplinary databases namely: SCOPUS, PUBMED, PsycINFO, and Sociological Abstracts were searched. Studies were selected if they used the concept of resilience and if substance use was a key variable under investigation. A total of 77 studies were identified which provided a definition of resilience, or attempted to operationalize (e.g., via scales) the concept of resilience in some manner. Data were charted and sorted using key terms and fundamental aspects of resilience. The majority of studies focus on youth and their resistance to, or engagement in, substance use. There is also a small but growing area of research that examines recovery from substance addiction as a form of resilience. Very few studies were found that thoroughly investigated resilience among PWUD. Consistently throughout the literature drug use is presented as a ‘risk factor’ jeopardizing one’s ability to be resilient, or drug use is seen as a ‘maladaptive coping strategy’, purporting one’s lack of resilience. Currently, substance use research provides a substantial amount of information about the internal strengths that can assist in resisting future drug use; however there is less information about the external resources that play a role, especially for adults. Though popular, outcome-based conceptualizations of resilience are often static, concealing the potential for developing resilience over time or as conditions change. Studies of resilience among PWUD predominantly concentrate on health-related behaviours, recovery-related factors or predefined harm reduction strategies. Indeed, overall, current conceptualizations of resilience are too narrow to recognize all the potential manifestations of resilience practices in the daily lives of individuals who actively use drugs.

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Is there room for resilience? A scoping review and critique of substance use literature and its utilization of the concept of resilience.

Background: Childhood abuse is considered one of the main environmental risk factors for the development of psychotic symptoms and disorders. However, this association could be due to genetic factors influencing exposure to such risky environments or increasing sensitivity to the detrimental impact of abuse. Therefore, using a large epidemiological case-control sample, we explored the interplay between a specific form of childhood abuse and family psychiatric history (a proxy for genetic risk) in the onset of psychosis. Methods: Data were available on 172 first presentation psychosis cases and 246 geographically matched controls from the Aetiology and Ethnicity of Schizophrenia and Other Psychoses study. Information on childhood abuse was obtained retrospectively using the Childhood Experience of Care and Abuse Questionnaire and occurrence of psychotic and affective disorders in first degree relatives with the Family Interview for Genetic Studies. Results: Parental psychosis was more common among psychosis cases than unaffected controls (adjusted OR = 5.96, 95% CI: 2.09–17.01, P = .001). Parental psychosis was also associated with physical abuse from mothers in both cases (OR = 3.64, 95% CI: 1.06–12.51, P = .040) and controls (OR = 10.93, 95% CI: 1.03–115.90, P = .047), indicative of a gene-environment correlation. Nevertheless, adjusting for parental psychosis did not measurably impact on the abuse-psychosis association (adjusted OR = 3.31, 95% CI: 1.22–8.95, P = .018). No interactions were found between familial liability and maternal physical abuse in determining psychosis caseness. Conclusions: This study found no evidence that familial risk accounts for associations between childhood physical abuse and psychotic disorder nor that it substantially increases the odds of psychosis among individuals reporting abuse.

/pdf/interplay-between-childhood-physical-abuse-and-familial-risk-17k7jeo4bb.pdf

Interplay Between Childhood Physical Abuse and Familial Risk in the Onset of Psychotic Disorders

Adverse childhood experiences in NSCAW

This study investigates the association between exposure to prospectively-substantiated childhood maltreatment between 0 and 14 years of age and lifetime cannabis use, abuse and dependence reported at 21 years. Data were taken from 2526 (51.6% female) participants in the Mater Hospital-University of Queensland Study of Pregnancy, a pre-birth, prospective, cohort study. Prospectively-substantiated cases of childhood maltreatment, reported to the government child protection agencies between 0 and 14 years of age, were linked to CIDI DSM-IV self-report data from the 21-year follow-up. Exposure to any childhood maltreatment, and childhood neglect in particular, predicted subsequent cannabis abuse with adjusted odds ratios (AORs) of 1.79 and 2.62, respectively. Any childhood maltreatment, physical abuse, emotional abuse and neglect predicted cannabis dependence with AORs of 2.47, 2.81, 2.44 and 2.68, respectively. The associations for an early age of onset of cannabis abuse and dependence were significant and consistent for maltreated children. In addition, frequency of maltreatment substantiations predicted cannabis abuse, dependence and an early age of onset of these disorders. The AORs for cannabis ever use without any DSM-IV cannabis disorder were 1.78 for any maltreatment and 2.15 for emotional abuse. Any childhood maltreatment and neglect predicted lifetime ever cannabis use, as well as cannabis use disorder. There was little evidence for any interaction between gender and different forms of childhood maltreatment and its association with cannabis use disorders. Physical abuse, emotional abuse and neglect, as well as multiple episodes of maltreatment independently predicted cannabis use disorders.

/pdf/substantiated-childhood-maltreatment-and-young-adulthood-p8z2oynw83.pdf

Substantiated childhood maltreatment and young adulthood cannabis use disorders: A pre-birth cohort study

Preventing and Responding to Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation: Evidence Review

http://www.redicces.org.sv:80/jspui/bitstream/10972/1671/1/Art%c3%adculo%202_%20Ju%c3%a1rezCristina_2013-1.pdf

C. G. Juárez

Papers

Exploring child maltreatment and its relationship to alcohol and cannabis use in selected Latin American and Caribbean countries