Demographic and psychological predictors of substances and drug abuse in disabled veterans

Aims. This study was to estimate the demographic and psychological predictors of substances and drug abuse (SDA) in disabled veterans (DV). Methods. This correlation study performed in DVs population in 2007. 452 DVs with severity of disability from 25 to 70% were selected by systematic categorical random sampling. Data were collected by Drug Abuse Screening Test (DAST), Addiction Severity Index (ASI), Automatic Thoughts Scale (ATS), Brief COPE, Chronic Stress Symptoms Checklist (CSSC), Post-Traumatic Symptom Scale-10 items (PTSS-10), Personal Well-being Index (PWI) and demographic questionnaire. Data was analyzed by SPSS 11 and Pearson correlation test, partial correlation tees and multivariate linear regression analysis using stepwise. Results. SDA correlated with behavior disengagement, ATS, ASI, CSSC and PTSD (PTSS) scores, but no correlation was seen with PWI scores. Regression analysis by all demographic and psychological variables showed that refuge to substances and drug against stress, cigarettes and hookah addiction, withdrawal, ATS, dissatisfaction by healthy status, disability time, home hours spending during day and group membership satisfaction explained 62% of SDA variances. Conclusion. SDA correlates with PTSS, DAST, ASI, ATS, Brief COPE, PWI and CSSC scores.