Asian Americans' childhood emotional abuse, emotional neglect, and opioid use: Distress intolerance as moderator

Asian Americans are highly underrepresented in opioid use research, despite recent studies demonstrating the presence of opioid use behaviors in Asian Americans and distinct negative outcomes of opioid use among Asian Americans in comparison to White adults. Emotional abuse and emotional neglect are important risk factors that may impact opioid use. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate (a) the associations between childhood emotional trauma (emotional abuse and emotional neglect) and opioid use, and (b) the role of distress intolerance as a moderator. 279 Asian American participants completed an online remote survey. Our findings revealed that childhood emotional abuse and emotional neglect were both significantly and positively associated with opioid use. We found that distress intolerance moderated the association between childhood emotional abuse and opioid use such that at low levels of emotional abuse, participants who exhibited greater distress intolerance displayed greater opioid use. These findings indicate that emotional abuse and neglect are specific forms of childhood trauma that are significantly associated with opioid use, perhaps as a maladaptive coping mechanism that capitalizes on the analgesic effects of opioids on the psychological pain from childhood emotional trauma. Additionally, marginalized populations that demonstrate distress intolerance may suffer negative health outcomes such as opioid use.