Addiction associated with poor awareness of others, study shows
The study was published in the Journal of Child and Adolescent Substance Abuse . Pagano, an associate professor of psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, had a major challenge in designing this study: adolescents are self-centered. But she was convinced that she would find addiction tied to a deficit in awareness of others above and beyond the ego-centric stage of adolescence. And she did. She recruited 585 adolescents from Cuyahoga County high schools and the largest residential treatment facility in Northeastern Ohio, and matched them by age, gender, race, and residence zip code. There were two adolescents who described little or no drug or alcohol use (n=390) for every one young addict (n=195). The study was designed to consider the relationship between the severity of the addiction and regard for others. She identified several behaviors to measure other-oriented awareness: driving under the influence, engaging in unprotected sex (even when the...