Drinking patterns of post-deployment Veterans: The role of personality, negative urgency, and posttraumatic stress

ABSTRACT

Rates of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and alcohol misuse are known to be high among postdeployment Veterans. Previous research has found that personality factors may be relevant predictors of postdeployment drinking, yet results have been inconsistent and may be influenced by the selection of drinking outcome. This study aimed to examine relations among PTSD, negative urgency, and the five factor models of personality with multiple alcohol consumption patterns, including maximum drinks in a day, number of binge drinking episodes, at-risk drinking, and average weekly drinks in a sample of 397 Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation New Dawn Veterans. The pattern of results suggested that the association among personality, PTSD, and drinking may depend on which drinking outcome is selected. For example, maximum drinks in a day was significantly associated with younger age, male gender, low agreeableness, and an interaction between negative urgency and PTSD, whereas number of binge drinking days was significantly associated with younger age, extraversion, low agreeableness, and negative urgency. This study highlights the heterogeneity of drinking patterns among Veterans and the need for careful consideration and transparency of outcomes selection in alcohol research.

KEYWORDS:

• Five factor model of personality
• alcohol use
• multiplicity

Disclosure statement

We have no known conflict of interest to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

The main study was funded by NIAAA under grants R01 AA020179 and K02 AA023239 (PI: Amstadter). Sage Hawn’s time was funded by NIAAA F31 AA025820. REDCap survey software was funded under grant UL1TR002649 from the NCRR.