College Students' Experiences of Childhood Developmental Traumatic Stress: Resilience, First-Year Academic Performance, and Substance Use

Abstract

Developmental trauma—distressing childhood experiences that include mistreatment, interpersonal violence, abuse, assault, and neglect—is associated with substance use and poor academic performance. The authors investigated the links between developmental trauma, grade point average, substance use, and resilience among first-year college students (N = 169). The results indicate there is a significant relationship between cumulative trauma and self-reported substance use.