Adverse Childhood Experiences in a Group of Inpatient Treatment-Seeking Individuals with Prescription Opioid Use Disorder | Biomedgrid

Prescription opioid (PO) addiction is a critical health problem both in the U.S. and internationally [1]. There were 18,893 overdose deaths related to PO pain relievers in 2014 in the U.S. alone [2].The costs of U.S. PO epidemic are estimated at $78.5 billion [3] and are rapidly increasing with increasing PO use. In 2015, 276,000 adolescents were current nonmedical users of pain relievers with 122,000 having an addiction to prescription pain relievers [4]. From 2002 to 2011, there was a 1.9-fold increase in the total number of deaths involving POs [5]. The current PO epidemic necessitates a fuller understanding of the risk factors for PO initiation. Doing so will provide us the opportunity to enhance prevention efforts and to reduce mortality by intervening at a much younger age. A small body of research has indicated an association between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and non-medical PO use [6]. Neuroscience suggests that ACEs may guide to physiological processes that cause disruption in early development of the central nervous system, diminishing ability to cope with emotions [7], and leading to impaired emotional and behavioral self-regulation over the life course [8]. And as a result, individuals may self-medicate with substances to cope with the dysregulated stress response [9,10].