Emotion Regulation, Impulsivity, and Personality Profile Among Egyptian Patients With Substance Use Disorders

Objectives: Emotion regulation deficits and impulsivity and personality profile as well play a role in the development and maintenance of substance use disorder (SUD). We aimed to examine the emotion regulation and both impulsivity and personality profile among patients with SUDs and its correlates. Patients and Methods: One hundred male patients with SUDs were selected from the inpatient and outpatient departments compared with 100 healthy controls matched for age, sex, and education. Structured Clinical Interview for the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (SCID-I); Temperement and Character Inventory, Barratt Impulsiveness Scale, Version 11 (BIS-11); and Trait Meta Mood Scale (TMMS) were used. Results: Emotional repair was significantly lower in cases compared with control group (P<0.05). Novelty seeking was significantly higher in patients with substance use. Meanwhile, cases had significantly lower scores in harm avoidance and persistence (P<0.01). In addition, cases showed significantly higher total, motor, attention, and nonplan scores of BIS compared with the control group (P<0.05). Furthermore, there was a negative correlation between attention to feeling, clarity of feeling, and repair of mood, and motor, attention, nonplan, and total scores of BIS. Meanwhile, there was a negative correlation between emotional repair and novelty seeking, harm avoidance, persistence, and self-transcendence. Conclusion: Deficits in emotional repair correlated with certain personality traits and impulsiveness may place individuals at more risk for SUD and are important variables to attend for proper management of SUD patients.