Childhood trauma and alcohol misuse in college students: The moderating role of minimization

History of childhood trauma as a risk factor for alcohol misuse in early adulthood is very well documented. Given the associations between childhood trauma and alcohol misuse, more work is needed to understand the factors that influence this relationship.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between childhood trauma, minimization of such events and alcohol misuse in a French college student sample.

A convenience sampling method was used to recruit students from several colleges located in Western France. The data set included 1180 records with complete responses.

This study employed a cross-sectional online survey. Data collection instruments included the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire Short-Form (CTQ-SF) and the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT).

The strength of the association between CTQ score and AUDIT total score was increased by minimization score (β = 0.122, p = .07). This result suggests that under-reporting childhood trauma experiences tends to increase the impact of such events on alcohol misuse.

These findings suggest that a tendency to minimize threatening childhood events may specifically be related to increased risk of greater alcohol misuse among college students. Therefore, it may be important for clinician to assess minimization of early events in students with a history of childhood trauma.