La vie universitaire est une source de stress importante pour les étudiants et favorise l’apparition de conduites addictives et de phénomènes de polyconsommation. Cependant, malgré la diversité des études sur les addictions des étudiants, rares sont celles qui proposent de considérer l’existence de profils addictifs spécifiques dans cette population. L’objectif de cette recherche est de tester l’existence de tels profils chez les étudiants à l’aide de la méthode d’analyse en clusters et d’identifier les caractéristiques de personnalité associées à ces profils. La personnalité ainsi que l’intensité de sept tendances addictives avec et sans substances ont été évaluées auprès de 341 étudiants à l’aide du Big Five Inventory et du Questionnaire de mesure de l’intensité des conduites addictives. Les résultats de l’analyse en clusters suggèrent que les tendances addictives des étudiants s’organiseraient selon trois grands profils caractérisés par la polyconsommation, l’investissement sportif et l’investissement d’Internet. Des analyses comparatives permettent d’identifier que chacun des profils serait associé à un trait de personnalité spécifique, respectivement : l’ouverture, le caractère consciencieux et le névrosisme. La discussion des résultats proposera notamment d’apprécier le rôle de l’activité physique dans la santé des étudiants et d’envisager une meilleure prise en charge des consommations de substances en population étudiante.

Academic stress is considered to be a factor responsible for addictive behaviors in students. These behaviors can be related to the use or misuse of substances (alcohol, tobacco, cannabis) and also to “behavioral” practices, such as sports activities or the use of the Internet. These behaviors are sometimes observed simultaneously and described as polyaddictions. Several scientific studies state that these addictive behaviors may be related to specific personality dimensions, however, the findings in this area remain limited and sometimes inconsistent. Most of the studies in this field fail to confirm whether specific addictive profiles exist in the case of college students, and do not clearly define the influence of personality dimensions on addictive behaviors. This study proposes to test the existence of such profiles with the use of cluster analyses and to identify if personality characteristics can be linked to these student profiles.

Personality dimensions and the incidence of seven addictive behaviors with or without substances were assessed amongst 341 college students (20.8% male, 79.2% female). The Big Five Inventory was used to assess personality dimensions: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. Seven addictive behaviors with or without substances were assessed using the Addictive Intensity Evaluation Questionnaire: alcohol use, tobacco use, cannabis use, medication drug use, addictive eating behaviors, sports addiction and addiction to the Internet.

The use of a cluster's analysis to test the existence of specific student profiles suggests that there are three addictive profiles. The first profile (45.5% of the students) is characterized by important scores in addictive behaviors related to the use of alcohol, tobacco and cannabis. The second profile (42.2% of the students) is characterized by a high score of addiction to sports and low scores for addiction to substance use. Finally, the third profile (12.3% of the students) is characterized by a high score of addiction to the Internet, and low scores of addiction to substance use and to sport practice. These three profiles are described in terms of polyaddiction, sport-involvement and cyber-involvement. Secondly, the results of comparative analyses (Anova) indicate that each of these profiles is characterized by a specific personality dimension: students with the first profile (polyaddiction) are characterized by an openness to experience, those with the second profile (sport-involvement) by conscientiousness, whereas the students with the third profile (cyber-involvement) report higher scores for neuroticism than those of the two other profiles.

With regard to the characteristics of second profile students involved in sports, these results clearly highlight the importance of physical activity when trying to prevent substance misuse and the emergence of dependence symptoms. Consequently, the role of specific psychological therapies based on encouraging physical activity should be considered in future longitudinal studies on college students or on clinical samples of people suffering from addiction. However, it remains difficult to determine if this therapeutic treatment is useful in the case of third profile students who are characterized by the addictive use of the Internet and high scores of neuroticism. Finally, from a clinical and theoretical point of view, this paper suggests that scientific studies on addiction should not only focus on a specific practice or substance use but simultaneously consider the different kinds of addictive behaviors that might appear amongst college students. Any such studies will have to take into account the existence of an addictive continuum (from the absence of addictive behaviors to the presence of severe symptoms of addiction) in order to clearly identify groups that may be considered as presenting risk factors related to the emergence of dependence symptoms.