Trauma, PTSD, and binge and hazardous drinking among women and men: findings from a national study.

OBJECTIVE

To examine whether trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are differentially associated with binge and hazardous patterns of drinking among women and men.

METHODS

Secondary analysis of the Wave 2 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC); the analytic sample included 31,487 respondents (54.6% female) without past-year alcohol abuse/dependence. Participants' trauma-exposure/PTSD status was characterized as: no exposure to trauma in lifetime (reference), lifetime trauma exposure, PTSD before past-year, or past-year PTSD. Past-year binge and hazardous drinking were examined with multinomial logistic regression models (past-year abstinence was modeled as the non-event); models included the main effects of trauma-exposure/PTSD status and gender, the trauma-exposure/PTSD status-by-gender interaction, psychiatric comorbidity, and socio-demographic covariates.

RESULTS

The gender-specific effects of trauma, before past-year PTSD, and past-year PTSD were significantly elevated for all drinking behaviors in women (range of odds ratios (ORs) = 1.8-4.8), and for some drinking behaviors in men (range of ORs = 1.3-2.0), relative to no trauma exposure. Trauma exposure was more strongly associated with high-frequency binge drinking, low-frequency binge drinking, and non-binge drinking among women as compared to men. Past-year PTSD was also more strongly associated with low-frequency binge drinking and non-binge drinking among women compared to men. Findings for hazardous drinking followed a similar pattern, with significant gender-related differences in ORs for hazardous drinking and non-hazardous drinking observed with respect to trauma exposure and past-year PTSD..

CONCLUSION

Mental health practitioners should be mindful of the extent to which trauma-exposed individuals both with and without PTSD engage in binge and hazardous drinking, given the negative consequences associated with these patterns of drinking..