Filipino migrant workers find shelter in gambling, alcohol addictions to deal with trauma
A significant number of Macau’s Filipino migrant workers suffer addictions, including gambling and alcohol, while dealing with traumas resulting from a combination of factors such as job uncertainty, family separation and financial hardship, a study published in the European Journal of Psychotraumatology has revealed.
Two University of Macau (UM) researchers, Ngai Lam Mou and Wai Kit Lei, conducted the study in Macau, along with scholars from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, University of North Texas and New York University.
The report is titled “The association between posttraumatic disorder symptoms and addictive behaviors in Macao within a sample of female Filipino migrant workers: a network analysis.”
The study’s background was the consideration that Macau’s Filipino migrant workers are vulnerable to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and addictive behaviors due to trauma histories, postmigration stressors and access to alcohol and gambling venues.
While PTSD addiction comorbidity is well-established in the existing literature, such research among migrant workers was lacking. This prompted the research, which aimed to investigate the difference between PTSD symptoms and addictive behaviors among Macau’s polytrauma-exposed Filipino domestic workers.
Data collected from 1,375 Filipino migrant workers as well as data from a subsample of 1,200 participants who reported an index traumatic event and PTSD symptoms were used in the analyses.
Participants responded to the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) PTSD checklist, the gambling disorder symptoms checklist and the alcohol use disorders identification test.
The results show PTSD symptoms of arousal and negative emotions were connected with gambling disorder symptoms; while PTSD symptoms of arousal, restricted affect, negative emotions and emotional reactivity were connected with alcohol misuse.
The investigators concluded PTSD’s negative emotional symptoms were common in the networks of PTSD and addictive behaviors, while PTSD’s restricted affect and emotional reactivity symptoms were unique to the network of PTSD and alcohol misuse.
The discussion section also noted as important the study’s finding that estimated nuanced associations between two types of addictive behaviors and PTSD symptoms utilizing network analytic models in a polytrauma-exposed sample of female Filipino domestic workers.
Study findings provide insight into the comorbidity of PTSD and addictive behaviors among female Filipino domestic workers.
