Objectives The current study investigates the moderating effect of perceived social support on associations between child maltreatment severity and adult trauma symptoms. We extend the existing literature by examining the roles of severity of multiple maltreatment types (i.e., sexual, physical, and emotional abuse; physical and emotional neglect) and gender in this process. Methods The sample included 372 newlywed individuals recruited from marriage license records. Participants completed a number of self-report questionnaires measuring the nature and severity of child maltreatment history, perceived social support from friends and family, and trauma-related symptoms. These questionnaires were part of a larger study, investigating marital and intrapersonal functioning. We conducted separate, two-step hierarchical multiple regression models for perceived social support from family and perceived social support from friends. In each of these models, total trauma symptomatology was predicted from each child maltreatment severity variable, perceived social support, and the product of the two variables. In order to examine the role of gender, we conducted separate analyses for women and men. Results As hypothesized, increased severity of several maltreatment types (sexual abuse, emotional abuse, emotional neglect, and physical neglect) predicted greater trauma symptoms for both women and men, and increased physical abuse severity predicted greater trauma symptoms for women. Perceived social support from both family and friends predicted lower trauma symptoms across all levels of maltreatment for men. For women, greater perceived social support from friends, but not from family, predicted decreased trauma symptoms. Finally, among women, perceived social support from family interacted with child maltreatment such that, as the severity of maltreatment (physical and emotional abuse, emotional neglect) increased, the buffering effect of perceived social support from family on trauma symptoms diminished. Conclusions The results of the current study shed new light on the potential for social support to shield individuals against long-term trauma symptoms, and suggest the importance of strengthening perceptions of available social support when working with adult survivors of child maltreatment.

This study examines the roles of positive and negative social support from a spouse as potential moderators of associations between experiences of physical abuse and exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) as a child and adult trauma symptoms. We hypothesized that positive social support received from a spouse would have a buffering effect on trauma symptoms whereas negative social support from a spouse would have a potentiating effect. Participants were 193 newlywed couples (total N ϭ 386) randomly recruited from a marriage license database. Participants completed self-report questionnaires measuring the nature and severity of child maltreatment and trauma symptoms, and they engaged in a brief videotaped task in which they discussed a personal problem with their partner. Positive and negative support behaviors exhibited during the recorded task were then coded. Results of dyadic data analysis (actor partner interdependence model) indicated that positive social support from a spouse buffered against trauma symptoms among men who were exposed to IPV during childhood whereas negative social support from a spouse potentiated trauma symptoms among men who were exposed either to IPV or child physical abuse (CPA). The buffering and potentiating effects of spousal support were reduced among men who were exposed to increasingly severe levels of IPV and CPA. By contrast, women's trauma symptoms were unrelated to positive or negative support from a spouse. These findings extend prior research by suggesting that, for men, day-to-day provisions of support from a spouse may play a key role in posttraumatic recovery.

Rape by an intimate partner frequently involves a precedence of sexual consent between victim and perpetrator, often does not include the use of physical force, and may not fit societal definitions of rape. Given these unique characteristics, women who are assaulted by an intimate partner may be less likely to acknowledge the experience as a rape. In turn, they might make fewer blame attributions toward themselves and their perpetrators than victims of rape by a nonpartner. Consistent with these expectations, results from 208 community women reporting rape in adulthood revealed the presence of indirect effects of perpetrator type (nonpartner vs. intimate partner) on both behavioral self-blame and perpetrator blame through rape acknowledgment, even when controlling for both victim substance use at the time of the assault and coercion severity. Compared with women who experienced a rape by a nonpartner, women who experienced rape in the context of a marital or dating relationship were less likely to blame themselves or the perpetrator for the assault, in part because they were less likely to label their experience as a rape. Overall, these findings highlight the unique nature of intimate partner rape and provide further information about the relatively underresearched area of sexual violence in intimate relationships.

This study examines associations between women’s alcohol intoxication at the time of sexual assault and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Drawing on the dual representation theory (Brewin, Gregory, Lipton, & Burgess, 2010), we hypothesized that intoxication at the time of assault would be positively associated with both overall symptoms of PTSD and PTSD re-experiencing symptoms in particular. A total of 143 community women (ages 18 to 26; 71.3% European American) reporting sexual victimization completed questionnaires assessing severity of coercion involved in the assault, perceived level of intoxication at the time of assault, and current PTSD symptoms. Overall, results suggested that greater alcohol intoxication (but not alcohol use alone) was associated with more severe PTSD symptoms when controlling for severity of coercion. Further, higher levels of victim intoxication at the time of the assault were most predictive of re-experiencing symptoms relative to the other symptom clusters.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) clinics in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) often provide psychoeducational or skill-building groups to prepare veterans for trauma-focused PTSD treatments. However, there has been limited evaluation of the effectiveness of this phase-based approach for treatment engagement and symptom reduction. Participants included 575 veterans seeking treatment for PTSD whose treatment outcomes were assessed in a VA outpatient PTSD clinic staffed by mental health professionals and trainees. Participants completed self-report measures of baseline characteristics and psychiatric symptoms as part of routine PTSD clinic treatment. We tested the association of preparatory group treatment with engagement in and treatment response to subsequent trauma-focused psychotherapies, cognitive processing therapy (CPT) and prolonged exposure therapy (PE), which are designated by VA as evidence-based psychotherapies (EBP). Following participation in preparatory treatments, 94/391 (24%) of veterans engaged in a subsequent trauma-focused EBP (CPT or PE). Relative to patients who had previously completed a preparatory group, patients initiating a trauma-focused EBP without having first attended preparatory PTSD treatment had similar rates of trauma-focused EBP completion and better treatment response, as measured by decreases on the PTSD Checklist for Diagnostic and Statistical