Trauma-memories, Stress and Craving in Substance Abuse Patients with a Traumatic History.

Substance Use Disorder (SUD) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
frequently co-occur. The self-medication hypothesis states that substance use
functions to regulate the negative emotions associated with PTSD symptoms.
Prior research indicated that trauma-memories can trigger craving in PTSD
patients with cocaine, nicotine and/ or alcohol dependency. The present study
has a different design and assesses craving after exposure to neutral cues,
stress cues and trauma cues. We hypothesise the following: subjects with high
scores on PTSD severity will experience more subjective craving to the trauma
and stress cues than subjects with less PTSD symptoms.

Do trauma cues trigger more craving in individuals with substance dependency
and PTSD in comparison with substance dependent individuals without PTSD? If
so, is this effect trauma-specific or are SUD-patients with PTSD more sensitive
to general stress cues?

Quasi-experimental factorial design with PTSD (positive vs. negative) x CUE
(trauma, stress, neutral) as factors and subjective craving as dependent
variable.

Subjects might experience craving and/ or stress after listening to a
tape-recorded text about their own traumatic experience. Participation to the
study can therefore be burdening and difficult. Different measures are taken to
minimize the burdens associated with the study (See p. 25 Research Protocol).
Study participation is time-consuming, patients will have to spend around three
hours (in total) in the experimental room. Subjects are tested three times with
each time one week in between. After being exposed to the cues, subjects are
asked to rate their current level of craving. A standardised craving
questionnaire is used.
Since this study focuses on trauma-memories in SUD-patients, only patients can
be included as subjects.