Although our measure of interpersonal violence comprised many of the indicators that are usually included in studies of childhood maltreatment (i.e., physical and sexual assault, domestic violence), our results also indicate that other forms of trauma are also associated with illicit drug use in adolescents when interpersonal violence exposure was controlled for in statistical models. Adolescents who experienced accidental PTEs were at elevated risk specifically for cocaine use. Prior work has shown that the association between unintentional or accidental events and adverse outcomes are generally less robust.56,57 However, particularly in an adolescent sample, perhaps these accidents and illnesses pose more real threat of death than other events, thus making the “dose” of traumatic stress stronger in this category.56-60 Future research should try to replicate these findings to determine whether this specificity of association persists in other populations, and if so, by what mechanism it may act. Specifically, researchers and clinicians should explore the nature of these events and their consequences, and try to determine whether the specific association with cocaine use has any relationship to the type of medical treatment received following these accidents or illnesses.
