Trauma, Emotional Regulation,Alexithymia & Dissociation in Addiction
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Trauma, Emotional Regulation, Alexithymia and Dissociation in Alcohol Dependence, Drug Dependence and Both
IRAS ID
190505
Contact name
Claire Stark
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Edinburgh
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 11 months, 18 days
Research summary
Currently, there has been little research looking at the differences between types of addiction and trauma, emotional regulation, dissociation (detachment from physical and emotional experience) and alexithymia (difficulties with describing and experiencing emotion). This research aims to investigate the relationships between these psychological factors between the three groups of alcohol addiction, drug addiction and people who misuse both drugs and alcohol.
Participants in the study will already be service users of NHS adult addiction services and will be asked to participate by their usual health care worker/ addiction worker. Participants will have the opportunity to consider their participation in the study and to give their informed consent. After they have consented they will be given a questionnaire pack which has four questionnaires and a questionnaire asking about drug and alcohol use, postcode and if they have been misusing substances in the last two weeks. The questionnaires will have a matching numerical code with the consent forms to ensure that all questionnaires completed have given their full consent. The time to complete all the questionnaires takes approximately 50 minutes. The researcher will regularly review participation in the study to ensure the minimum amount of people (39) will be in each group. People would be excluded from the study if they have been misusing drugs or alcohol within the last two weeks as it has been found that there can be some confusion between the effects of the substances themselves, the symptoms of withdrawal and the experience of dissociation (Langeland, Draijer & van der Brink, 2002). Also, an exclusion criteria would be if the person is currently experiencing psychosis or has cognitive impairment as the measures are not validated for people with these difficulties.
REC name
West of Scotland REC 4
REC reference
16/WS/0072
Date of REC Opinion
17 May 2016
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion