Personality Factors and Drug of Choice in Female Addicts with Psychiatric Comorbidity

• NCJ Number: 194720
• Journal: Substance Use & Misuse Volume: 37 Issue: 1 Dated: January 2002 Pages: 1-18
• Author(s): Arne Gerdner Ph.D.; Torsten Nordlander Ph.D.; Therese Pedersen BSW
• Date Published: 2002
• Length: 18 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study tested whether personality factors, specifically maturity, contributed to drug choice of female addicts.

Abstract

The authors evaluated 108 female addicts with a mean age of 37.2 years using the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI). The sample of women primarily misused alcohol, heroin, amphetamines, and benzodiazepines. The objective of the study was to test whether differences in maturity levels among female addicts impacted their choice of drug. Differences in mean values of the TCI scale between the four groups of addicts were tested using Pillais MANCOVA as well as a univariate F-test and post hoc tests. The results indicated that while maturity was ranked as low for all four groups of drug abusers, there was no difference in maturity between the groups. However, the findings did indicate that benzodiazepine addicts tended to exhibit more pathological characteristics than the other addicts. 3 Tables, 33 references