Substance Abuse Among Health Professionals: A Personal Construct Analysis

Abstract

This study aims to describe health professionals who abuse substances in terms of their personal construing process and other associated psychological measures. Thirty health professionals hospitalized because of a substance use disorder in a specialized clinic were recruited for this study. In the same way as in previous studies carried out in clinical populations, more than half of the participants presented cognitive conflicts (in the form of implicative dilemmas) and this group scored higher on trait anxiety and burnout than health professionals without such conflicts. No statistically significant differences were found between those with implicative dilemmas and those without in terms of depression symptoms or state of anxiety. A logistic regression showed that the presence of cognitive conflicts was best predicted by burnout. Distance between ideal and actual self and cognitive complexity were the best predictors of belonging to our clinical sample or to a randomly matched community sample. Content analysis of the constructs revealed an overrepresentation of values and interests in the clinical sample. The findings are discussed in relation to previous research in substance use, cognitive conflicts in the clinical population and identity construction.