Examining within- and between-person facets of negative affect and associations with daily craving among young adults in substance use disorder recovery

Abstract

The role of negative affect in precipitating drug craving and relapse among young adults in recovery from substance use disorder (SUD) is well documented. However, most studies focus on negative affect as a trait-level congregate of multiple negative emotion states. The present study examined the associations between specific facets of negative affect, college stressors, and craving among young adult college students in SUD recovery. Data were drawn from a three-week daily diary study of 50 students participating in a collegiate recovery community at a U.S. university (M_age = 21.42, 76% males). At the within-person level, craving was higher on days when young adults experienced higher than usual anger, fear, and sadness, but not guilt. At the between-person level, individuals higher in agitation reported greater levels of craving on average. Moderation analyses further showed that college stressors heightened the within-person association between anger and craving. Findings demonstrate that negative affect is not monolithic and that its different aspects are uniquely associated with craving at both between- and within-person levels. Findings from this study could guide collegiate SUD recovery programs that wish to provide greater support to their members by helping them identify both individual- and time-specific relapse risks, such as generally high levels of agitation or days when anger, fear, or sadness are higher than usual for a particular individual. Our findings also suggest that future research should consider distinct features and implications of affective structures at between- and within-person levels, and how these may be uniquely associated with craving.

Keywords:

• Craving
• negative affect
• recovery
• daily diary
• stress
• substance use

Ethical approval

The study was conducted under the approval of a university Institutional Review Board and all participants provided informed consent.

Author contributions

Shou-Chun Chiang: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Writing – Original draft. Kyler S. Knapp: Conceptualization, Writing – Original draft. Sunhye Bai: Conceptualization, Writing – review & editing. H. Harrington Cleveland: Study Design and Investigation, Supervision, Writing – review & editing. Kitty S. Harris: Project administration, Writing – review & editing.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by internal university grants awarded to Dr. Cleveland. Shou-Chun Chiang was supported by the Prevention and Methodology Training Program (T32 DA017629; MPIs: J. Maggs & S. Lanza) with funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute on Drug Abuse or the National Institutes of Health.