High risk behaviours in young adults: is there a common substrate?

As such, we call the behaviors an individual manifests that place his/her physical health and life under high risk. These kind of behaviors are due to some personality traits (emotional instability, impulsivity, aggression dyscontrol), psychiatric symptoms (severe anxiety, dysphoria) or disorders. High risk-taking behaviors are: 1) Drug use-abuse or addiction, 2) Alcoholism, 3) Suicidality, 4) Delinquency, 5) Violence, 6) An individual's tendency to engage very frequently in accidents, and 7) Sexual behaviors that are very risky for contamination from sexually transmitted diseases (i.e. AIDS). These behaviors are much more often among adolescents and young adults in comparison to individuals of other ages. As it could be understood, the above behaviors could be classified under three categories. Research data as well as clinical experience will be discussed that converge to the point that all these risky behaviors are correlated each other.