Citation

Overstreet NM, Willie TC, Hellmuth JC, Sullivan TP. Womens Health Issues 2014; 25(1): 73-78.

Affiliation

Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut; Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. Electronic address: tami.sullivan@yale.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.whi.2014.10.005

PMID

25498762

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Research has examined how physical and sexual intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization increases sexual risk behavior, yet research is lacking on 1) the effect of psychological IPV on sexual risk behavior and 2) factors through which psychological IPV may be linked to sexual risk behavior.

METHODS: The current study examined the relationship between psychological IPV and sexual risk behavior controlling for other forms of IPV (i.e., physical and sexual) in a sample of 186 human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-negative community women currently experiencing IPV. Further, this study examined the potential mediating effects of four posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom severity clusters (i.e., re-experiencing, avoidance, numbing, and hyperarousal) on this relationship.

FINDINGS: Results revealed that greater severity of psychological IPV was uniquely and directly related to greater sexual risk behavior. Additionally, of the four PTSD symptom severity clusters, only avoidance symptom severity mediated the relationship between psychological IPV and sexual risk behavior.

CONCLUSION: Implications for addressing psychological IPV and PTSD to improve women's sexual health outcomes are discussed.

Language: en