Interrelationships of Violence and Psychiatric Symptoms in Women with Substance Use Disorders

Women's issues of violence, mental health problems, and substance abuse have been noted to cooccur, but few studies have examined the interrelationship among the three. A chart review of 198 women (primarily African American) at an inner city substance abuse treatment center was performed to collect data related to physical and sexual abuse experiences before and after age 13. There were significant associations among all forms of physical and sexual abuse before and after age 13 and most of the types of substances abused and almost all of the presenting mental health problems, but most of the independent relationships became nonsignificant in multivariate analyses. However, the experience of both physical and sexual assault increased the risk of suicide attempts by a factor of 6.04. Physical assault was a borderline (p = .07) predictor of depression, while sedative use was significantly predictive of depression, anxiety, and suicide attempts.