Amanda Hudson

• PhD
• Dalhousie University

Background Relationships exist between perceived peer and own use of alcohol, cannabis, and tobacco, particularly when peers and participants are sex-matched. We investigated sex influences on social norms effects for college students’ non-medical prescription drug use (NMPDU). Methods: N = 1986 college students reported on their perceptions of mal...

Objectives: Successful immunization programs require strategic communication to increase confidence among individuals who are vaccine-hesitant. This paper reviews research on determinants of vaccine hesitancy with the objective of informing public health responses to COVID-19. Method: A literature review was conducted using a broad search strate...

Background and Aims Reported rates of cannabis use among Canadian females are increasing. Female cannabis users progress to cannabis use disorder more rapidly than males (telescoping) and have higher rates of emotional disorder comorbidity. Addictive behaviors may change, along with mood and motivations, across the menstrual cycle (MC), particularl...

Objectives This paper reviews research on the topic of cannabis use and mental health harms in older adults and illustrates potential contributing factors and special clinical considerations for working with this population. Known risk factors for cannabis-related mental disorders and mental health problems are outlined, first for the general popul...

Given that few youth with mental health service needs actually seek help, understanding their perceptions of barriers is important. We examined principal individual, community, and systemic barriers to help-seeking, and compared barriers by population density (rural/small city), gender, age, and mental health status. Questionnaires were delivered t...

Research has demonstrated that men and boys experience mental health and substance use problems at different rates and in different ways than girls and women. Of utmost concern is the higher prevalence rates of suicide among boys and men. This document overviews programs and supports available for boys and men in PEI and presents sex and gender dif...

Managing opioid use disorder in the context of pregnancy adds significant social, psychological, and physiological complexity to each clinical encounter. As such, it is essential that care providers be familiar with evidence-based practices for managing these complex cases. This poster presents recent literature and Canadian guidelines surrounding...

Childhood maltreatment is associated with increased risk of alcohol misuse. Posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) and coping motives have both been identified, separately, as mediators of the relation between childhood maltreatment and alcohol misuse but have yet to be examined as serial mediators in a high‐risk population. A total of 564 adolescent...

Background and aims: Despite increases in female gambling, little research investigates female-specific factors affecting gambling behavior (GB). Although research suggests that some addictive behaviors may fluctuate across menstrual cycle phase (MCP), gambling requires further investigation. In two studies, we examined associations between MCP an...

Alcohol intoxication is often involved for both victims and perpetrators of sexual victimization. Yet, alcohol-involved sexual victimization research has mainly focused on female victims, excluding male victims. The current study addresses gaps in the literature by focusing on sex differences in the emotional harms (anxiety and depression symptomat...

Although many individual risk factors have been identified for student mental health problems and alcohol misuse, there is a relative paucity of research that examines how variables, such as campus environment, contribute to students’ experiences of these problems. This study examined a series of perceived campus environment factors (e.g., feeling...

There is a consensus among addictions researchers and clinicians that mental health concerns and substance use problems are often interrelated. It is less clear to what extent the general public, and university students in particular, understand connections between substance use and mental health. The current study aimed to understand university st...

Background: Alcohol use has been reported to fluctuate over women's menstrual cycles (MCs), with increased intake occurring premenstrually/menstrually (phases characterized by heightened negative affect) and during the ovulatory phase (a phase characterized by positive affect). This suggests women may drink for particular emotion-focused reasons a...

Outcome expectancies (OEs), or beliefs about the consequences of engaging in a particular behaviour, are important predictors of addictive behaviours. In Study 1 of the present work, we assessed whether memory associations between gambling and positive outcomes are related to excessive and problem gambling. The Gambling Behaviour Outcome Associatio...

There is a consensus in the addictions literature that exposure to addiction-relevant cues can precipitate a desire to engage, or actual engagement, in the addictive behaviour. Previous work has shown that exposure to gambling-relevant cues activates gamblers’ positive gambling outcome expectancies (i.e. their beliefs about the positive results of...

It is well-established that childhood sexual abuse (CSA) increases risk for later substance abuse. However, less is known about the mechanisms by which CSA increases risk of substance abuse, including problem drinking. Research points to negative emotions as potential explanatory links between CSA and problem drinking, and suggests that pathways ma...

Objective: There is a paucity of research on the prevalence and consequences of secondhand harms from alcohol. The current study (a) investigated whether secondhand harms can be clustered into latent factors that reflect distinct but related types of harms and (b) examined the associations between experiencing secondhand harms and mental health out...

Outcome expectancies (OEs), or beliefs about the consequences of engaging in a particular behaviour, are important predictors of addictive behaviours. In Study 1 of the present work, we assessed whether memory associations between gambling and positive outcomes are related to excessive and problem gambling. The Gambling Behaviour Outcome Associatio...

Disordered gambling is characterized by persistent and problematic gambling, leading to impairment or distress, which may be exacerbated by vigilance to gambling cues in the environment. Yet, questions regarding the specific attentional biases present in gamblers remain unresolved. In the current study, we used a rapid serial visual presentation pa...

a b s t r a c t Specific personality dimensions may increase susceptibility to alcohol misuse by encouraging motives for drinking that are associated with risky alcohol use. In the current study, we examined associations between personality risk factors (hopelessness (HOP), anxiety sensitivity (AS), sensation seeking (SS), and impulsivity (IMP)) an...

Problem drinking may reflect a maladaptive means of coping with negative emotions or enhancing positive emotions. Disorders with affective symptoms are often characterized by attentional biases for symptom-congruent emotionally valenced stimuli. Regarding addictions, coping motivated (CM) problem gamblers exhibit an attentional bias for negative st...

Specific personality dimensions may increase susceptibility to alcohol misuse by encouraging motives for drinking that are associated with risky alcohol use. In the current study, we examined associations between personality risk factors (hopelessness (HOP), anxiety sensitivity (AS), sensation seeking (SS), and impulsivity (IMP)) and drinking motiv...

Problem drinking may reflect a maladaptive means of coping with negative emotions or enhancing positive emotions. Disorders with affective symptoms are often characterized by attentional biases for symptom-congruent emotionally valenced stimuli. Regarding addictions, coping motivated (CM) problem gamblers exhibit an attentional bias for negative st...

Children’s developing capacity to regulate emotions may depend on individual characteristics and other abilities, including age, sex, inhibitory control, theory of mind, and emotion and display rule knowledge. In the current study, we examined the relations between these variables and children’s (N = 107) regulation of emotion in a disappointing gi...

Problem gambling may reflect a maladaptive means of fulfilling specific affect-regulation motives, such as enhancing positive affect or coping with negative affect. Research with clinical populations indicates that disorders with prominent affective symptoms are characterized by attentional biases for symptom-congruent information. Thus, we assesse...

Sex differences have been reported in various phases of substance abuse, including relapse. In general, women show greater propensity to drug relapse than men, owing perhaps to divergent withdrawal experiences and increased reactivity to internal (emotional) and external (drug-associated) cues. Animal research tends to parallel human findings, reve...