A five-factor model of personality and addiction, psychiatric, and AIDS risk severity in pregnant and postpartum cocaine misusers

The relationship between addiction severity, psychiatric symptoms, AIDS risk behaviors, and an alternative five-factor measure of personality, the Zuckerman-Kuhlman Personality Questionnaire, was assessed in 92 cocaine-misusing pregnant and postpartum women in an inner city outpatient treatment program. Three of the personality traits (Neuroticism-Anxiety, Impulsive Sensation Seeking, Aggression-Hostility) were significantly related to different subscales of the Addiction Severity Index, Beck Depression Inventory, various psychiatric symptoms, and high HIV risk sexual activity. Of these traits, Neuroticism-Anxiety seemed to be the most powerful predictor of symptom severity for this sample of women, Scores on the personality dimensions were not related to recency, frequency, amount, or duration of drug use or to treatment outcomes.