Post-traumatic risk factors in heroin addiction patients undergoing substitution treatment

الملخص EN

Opioid addiction is a real public health problem and studies on its risk factors are needed.

Scientific work addressing the links between heroin addiction from the angle of the impact of traumatic events and post-traumatic consequences, risk factors often apparent in the clinic, has focused more on specific populations in the Arab countries, and more rarely in Iraq.

This research therefore focused on studying post-traumatic risk factors in heroin-addiction patients undergoing substitution treatment through cross-sectional study.

This study concerned a set of 30 heroin-addiction patients on Opioid Substitution Treatment OST during their treatment at Ibn Rushd Psychiatric Hospital Teaching IRPHT in Baghdad.

We hypothesized that opioid addiction correlated with traumatic events, psychiatric disorders and socio-demographic determinants.

The patients responded to structured interviews and to a dossier of validated questionnaires to assess the socio-demographic characteristics, the traumatic experience and its psychopathological consequences.

The research shows that opioid addiction is positively correlated with social situation, current dissociative symptoms and hyper responsiveness of PTSD.

In conclusion, our research provided elements of understanding of the links between PTSD and opioid addiction, thus contributing Iraq researches in the field of addictions.

Our study highlight the need to rigorously investigate the presence of traumatic events and include a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy CBT psychotherapeutic intervention targeting PTSD in the treatment of heroin addiction.