Predictors of PTSD symptom severity and social reactions in sexual assault victims

Abstract

Demographics, assault variables, and postassault responses were analyzed as correlates of PTSD symptom severity in a sample of 323 sexual assault victims. Regression analyses indicated that less education, greater perceived life threat, and receipt of more negative social reactions upon disclosing assault were each related to greater PTSD symptom severity. Ethnic minority victims reported more negative social reactions from others. Victims of more severe sexual victimization reported fewer positive, but more negative reactions from others. Greater extent of disclosure of the assault was related to more positive and fewer negative social reactions. Telling more persons about the assault was related to more negative and positive reactions. Implications of these results for developing contextual theoretical models of rape-related PTSD are discussed.Keywords posttraumatic stress; social reactions; sexual assault; disclosure Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a common consequence of rape experiences with one-third of female rape victims identified in community samples experiencing PTSD at some time after the assault (Kilpatrick, Edmunds, & Seymour, 1992). In longitudinal research assessing rape victims immediately after assault, PTSD characterized 94% of victims within 2 weeks postassault and 47% of victims within 3 months postassault (Rothbaum, Foa, Riggs, Murdock, & Walsh, 1992). A number of studies have examined correlates of the PTSD diagnosis or PTSD symptom severity in sexual assault victims to identify those survivors most likely to develop the disorder after the assault. A study of representatively sampled sexual assault victims by Frazier et al. (1997) showed that over half of women (58%) who nominated sexual assault as their worst traumatic event had PTSD in their lifetime. Multivariate analyses showed that young, White women who perceived the assault to be life-threatening, were more upset at the time of the assault, and those who blamed themselves and others for the assault had more PTSD symptoms. These results suggest that demographic background, traumatic event characteristics, and postassault victim responses all may be predictive of PTSD.Rape appears to be more likely than other traumatic events to result in PTSD at least in part because specific traumatic characteristics (e.g., perceived life threat) are more common for rape than for other traumatic events (Frazier et al., 1997). However, even when event characteristics are controlled, having a rape history predicts unique variance in PTSD risk, implying that something about rape itself, or postassault responses to rape, contributes to PTSD in addition to these event characteristics (Frazier et al., 1997;Kilpatrick, Saunders, Amick-McMullan, & Best, 1989). Perhaps the personally intrusive nature of rape is what makes it uniquely traumatic. Resnick, Kilpatrick, Dansky, Saunders, and Best (1993) studied a national sample of women and found that perceived life threat and physical injury were related to more PTSD, a diagnosis more common in...

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Labeling Acts of Sexual Violence: What Roles do Assault Characteristics, Attitudes, and Life Experiences Play?

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