Investigation of the relationship between psychological flexibility levels and sociotropy-autonomy personality traits and decision-making styles of individuals with substance use disorder

The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between psychological flexibility levels, sociotropy-autonomy personality traits and decision-making styles of individuals with substance use disorder. The study was cross-sectional and correlational. The Data were obtained by face-to-face interviews with 106 patients who were hospitalized in a regional psychiatric hospital Alcohol and Substance Addiction Treatment Center between the dates of June and August 2023 and who agreed to participate in the study after obtaining ethics committee approval. Descriptive information form, sociotropy-autonomy personality traits scale, psychological flexibility scale and Melbourne decision making scale I-II (MDMQ) were used to collect the data. Descriptive statistics and correlation analysis were used to examine the relationship between variables. The patients who participated in the study consisted of 97.2% male and the mean age was 35.30 ± 10.53 years. 31.1% of the individuals stated that they started to use substances in the environment of friends and 65.1% of them stated that they had attempted to quit before. It was observed that the patients had a moderate level of psychological flexibility (116.36 ± 16.49), showed autonomy personality traits (79.77 ± 23.0) and used a Vigilance decision-making style (8.54 + 3.08). A statistically significant negative correlation was found between the mean scores of the psychological flexibility scale and the mean scores of the "buck-passing" subscale of the MDMQ (r=-.303 P = .002). In addition, a statistically significant positive correlation was found between the mean score of the "Sociotropy" subscale of the PES and the mean scores of the Vigilance Decision Making subscale and Hypervigilance Decision Making subscale of the MDMQ (r=.233 P = .016; r=.223 P = .022). There is a relationship between personality traits, psychological flexibility levels and decision-making styles of patients with substance use disorders. While those with low psychological flexibility levels show "buck-passing" decision-making tendencies, those with sociotropy personality traits show "vigilance" and "hypervigilance" decision-making tendencies.