Sarah DeGrace

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Instructor at Dalhousie University

Objective Trauma survivors are more likely than others to use cannabis, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) commonly co-occurs with cannabis use disorder (CUD). Automatic memory associations between trauma reminders and cannabis use have been suggested as contributing mechanisms. These associations can be studied experimentally by manipulatin...

Objective: Increasingly, cannabis is being prescribed/used to help manage posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) or chronic pain, as cannabis has been argued to be beneficial for both types of symptoms. However, the evidence on efficacy is conflicting with evidence of risks mounting, leading some to caution against the use of cannabis for the managem...

Introduction While sexual assault may have particularly adverse emotional effects compared with other forms of trauma, it remains unclear which emotional outcome dimensions are impacted, whether cannabis outcomes are similarly impacted, and whether gender differences exist in sexual assault’s links with these outcomes. Methods N = 100 cannabis use...

Objectives Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and cannabis use disorder (CUD) commonly co-occur. Conditioned associations between psychological trauma cues, distress, cannabis use, and desired relief outcomes may contribute to the comorbidity. These conditioned associations can be studied experimentally by manipulating trauma cue exposure in a cu...

Conditioned cannabis craving to trauma cues, arising through coping-motivated cannabis use, may contribute to PTSD—cannabis use disorder comorbidity. However, prior work unexpectedly failed to support negative affect–specific coping motives as a mediator of the PTSD symptom severity–trauma cue–elicited cannabis craving association. We re-examined t...

Trauma cue-elicited activation of automatic cannabis-related cognitive biases are theorized to contribute to comorbid posttraumatic stress disorder and cannabis use disorder. This phenomenon can be studied experimentally by combining the trauma cue reactivity paradigm (CRP) with cannabis-related cognitive processing tasks. In this study, we used a...

Objectives Derived from classical conditioning theory and rooted in motivational mechanisms, cue reactivity paradigms (CRPs) are used in addictions research to measure participants' propensities for substance‐relevant responses (e.g., craving) during exposure to substance‐relevant cues (e.g., drug paraphernalia). CRPs are also useful in PTSD‐addict...

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers around the world have made efforts to assess its impact on youth mental health; however, the breadth of this topic has impeded a clear assessment of pandemic outcomes. This study aimed to address this gap by reviewing changes in youth (age ≤ 25) mental health, psychological wellbeing, substance...

Among trauma-exposed individuals, substances may be used as a means of obtaining symptom relief following exposure to trauma reminders. Repeated pairing of trauma cues with substance use may lead to the development of classically conditioned craving to trauma cues. Conditioned craving following cue exposure can be studied in-lab using the cue-react...

Background: The focus of this review was to assess changes in youth mental health, psychological wellbeing, or substance use, as well as changes or disruptions to the delivery of mental health or substance use services for young people during the COVID-19 pandemic. Method: We conducted a rapid review of the literature on our outcomes of interest am...

Males are more non-adherent to public health measures for containing COVID-19 while females experience more COVID-19-related distress. Personality traits may influence both non-adherence and distress. We examined sensation seeking (SS), anxiety sensitivity (AS), impulsivity, and hopelessness as traits potentially associated with non-adherence and d...