Childhood trauma as a correlate of lifetime opiate use in psychiatric patients

Associations have been reported between childhood sexual and/or physical ab use and adult substance abuse in general. This study investigated the relat ionship between childhood abuse and opiate use in particular among 763 cons ecutively admitted psychiatric inpatients. Patients were interviewed about demographic information, alcohol and drug use, and history of interpersonal violence. Opiate users were 2.7 times more likely to have a history of chi ldhood sexual and/or physical abuse than nonopiate users, after controlling for diagnostic and sociodemographic variables. Opiate use was higher among those reporting physical abuse alone (24.1%) or both physical and sexual a buse (27%) than among those reporting sexual abuse alone (8.8%). Implicatio ns of these findings are discussed. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd.