Autores UNAM:
REBECA ROBLES GARCIA; ANA FRESAN ORELLANA;

---

Autores externos:

---

Idioma:
Inglés

---

Año de publicación:
2018

---

Palabras clave:

Gender; Impulsivity; Mental disorders; Substance use

---

Resumen:

Introduction: Impulsivity is defined as a predisposition toward unplanned reactions to stimuli. Its association with psychiatric disorders is not new since it has been considered a common clinical feature in several psychiatric diagnoses and a major predictor of substance use and attempted suicide. The construct of impulsivity encompasses various components, including personality, cognition and behavior and manifests differently across psychiatric disorders. One can therefore assume that there is not only an exclusive, one-way direction in the association between psychiatric disorders and impulsivity as the latter may influence the way impulsivity manifests. In addition, other variables such as gender and substance may also have a direct impact or act as moderators of impulsivity traits. Although evidence of the association between impulsivity, psychiatric disorders, substance abuse and certain individual characteristics such as gender exists, it remains unclear whether they contribute to increasing impulsivity traits, and whether this influence differs between men and women. Objective: To determine the impact of demographic variables and substance use in the overt expression of impulsivity in men and women with and without mental disorders. Method: A total of 318 psychiatric patients from the outpatient services of two institutions and 184 healthy subjects were recruited. Patients were included if they were =18 years of age, met DSM-IV criteria for a psychotic, mood- or stress-related disorder and were clinically stable enough according to the treating physician to complete the study assessments. Healthy subjects were screened using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID-I) and were excluded if any diagnostic criteria was met or if they verbally reported a history of psychiatric disorders. Demographic data and comorbidity with substance use were obtained from the patients? medical records and a direct clinical interview with all the respondents. Current use of alcohol, nicotine, cannabis and cocaine was recorded through a closed-ended (yes/no) question. Plutchik?s Impulsivity Scale was used to assess impulsivity. Results: A higher frequency of patients reported alcohol (40.4% vs. 29.3%, p = 0.01), cannabis (16.4% vs. 2.2%, p < 0.001), cocaine (9.3% vs. 1.1%, p < 0.001) and nicotine (29.6% vs. 8.7%) use in comparison with healthy subjects. They were also more impulsive than healthy controls (22.5, S.D. = 7.5 vs. 13.7, S.D. = 6.6; p < 0.001) while women in the group of patients were more impulsive than men (23.5, S.D. = 7.4 vs. 20.1, S.D. = 7.1, p = 0.002). The presence of a psychiatric disorder and being younger were variables related to impulsivity in both men and women. However, other significant related variables were different by gender. In men, these variables were cocaine use, unemployment and being married; whereas in women they included alcohol use and lower educational attainment Conclusions: Impulsivity is present in patients with psychiatric disorders and the differences observed between them and healthy subjects can be at least partly explained by the younger age and correspondingly lower educational attainment reported in the clinical sample. In patients with psychiatric disorders, its manifestation may vary according to gender. According to various studies, this difference can be explained by the effects of hormones, but also by the different manifestation of impairments in cognitive performance and emotional regulation found between men and women. Our results for the association between substance use and impulsivity are consistent with previous research. However, our findings highlight the way substance use has a different impact on impulsivity features by gender since frequency of use and motivations for use may differ between them. Despite its various limitations, our study emphasizes the importance of the assessment of impulsivity in everyday clinical practice and the need for intervention strategies designed to reduce or manage its presence in a proactive way. © 2018 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

---

Entidades citadas de la UNAM:

---