PTSD symptoms, potentially traumatic event exposure, and binge drinking: a prospective study with a national sample of adolescents

Abstract

Research demonstrates substantial comorbidity between PTSD and alcohol use disorders. Evidence for functional relationships between PTSD and problematic alcohol use has not always been consistent, and there have been few investigations with adolescent samples. Further, research has not consistently controlled for cumulative potentially traumatic event (PTE) exposure when examining prospective relationships between PTSD and problematic alcohol use (i.e., binge drinking). This study examines the prospective relationships between PTSD symptoms, problematic alcohol use, and cumulative PTE exposure measured at three time points over approximately three years among a nationally representative sample of adolescents exposed to at least one PTE (n=2399 and age range=12-17 at Wave 1). Results from parallel process latent growth curve models demonstrated that increases in cumulative PTE exposure over time positively predicted increases in both PTSD symptoms and binge drinking, whereas increases in PTSD symptoms and increases in binge drinking were not related when controlling for the effect of cumulative PTE exposure. Further analyses suggested that these relationships are specific to assaultive PTEs and are not found with non-assaultive PTEs. Theoretical implications are discussed.

Figure 1

Observed means (and standard error bars) and means predicted by the individual LGM across the waves. Top figure = PTSD symptoms; middle figure = PTE exposure; bottom figure = binge drinking frequency.

Figure 2

Standardized path coefficients for the omnibus parallel process LGM (n=2399). Significant paths are indicated by bold font and an asterisk. Gender and age were included as covariates in the model, but are not in the figure to ease interpretability.

Figure 3

Standardized path coefficients for the assaultive PTE parallel process LGM (n=1799). Significant paths are indicated by bold font and an asterisk. Gender and age were included as covariates in the model, but are not in the figure to ease interpretability.

Figure 4

Standardized path coefficients for the non-assaultive PTE parallel process LGM (n=1600). Significant paths are indicated by bold font and an asterisk. Gender and age were included as covariates in the model, but are not in the figure to ease interpretability.