Citation

Griffing S, Lewis CS, Chu M, Sage RE, Madry L, Primm BJ. J. Interpers. Violence 2006; 21(7): 936-954.

Affiliation

Urban Resource Institute.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2006, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0886260506288938

PMID

16731993

Abstract

This study examines the interrelationships between childhood abuse, exposure to maternal domestic violence, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomatology in a multiethnic sample of 111 adult female residents of a domestic violence (DV) shelter. Participants completed structured interviews about the DV and their prior violence exposure, as well as the Impact of Event Scale-Revised. As hypothesized, there was high co-occurrence between exposure to maternal DV and childhood physical and sexual abuse, and the frequency of lifetime violence exposure predicted PTSD symptomatology. A series of multiple regressions indicated a more complex pattern of relationships, in which specific forms of prior violence exposure predicted different PTSD symptom dimensions. A history of witnessing maternal DV predicted intrusion symptoms, and a history of childhood sexual abuse predicted hyperarousal symptoms. Ethnicity was not related to levels of violence exposure or to PTSD symptoms. Clinical implications of the findings are discussed.

Language: en