Citation

Weiss NH, Duke AA, Sullivan TP. Anxiety Stress Coping 2014; 27(6): 722-732.

Affiliation

a Department of Psychiatry , Yale University School of Medicine , New Haven , USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/10615806.2014.899586

PMID

24592874

Abstract

Women who experience intimate partner violence (IPV) are at heightened risk for drug use problems. While prevailing models of drug use suggest that IPV-exposed women use drugs in an effort to escape or avoid negative affect, a dearth of literature has examined the role of avoidance coping in drug use problems within this population. Given recent suggestions that flexible, situationally-appropriate use of avoidance coping may be adaptive, particularly when confronted with highly stressful situations, we hypothesized that avoidance coping and drug use problems would demonstrate a curvilinear, U-shaped dose-response relationship. Participants were 147 community-recruited women experiencing IPV. Consistent with our hypothesis, moderate levels of avoidance coping were associated with lower levels of drug use problems, whereas low and high levels of avoidance coping were associated with higher levels of drug use problems. Findings highlight the complex relationship between avoidance coping and drug use problems and suggest that avoidance coping, when used in moderation, may be an adaptive strategy for coping with relational conflict among women who experience IPV.

Language: en