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Abstract
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INTRODUCTION: Posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTS) and risky alcohol use (RAU) frequently co-occur among those with a history of sexual assault, and this co-occurrence has been linked to severe psychosocial and functional impairment.
OBJECTIVE: The current study examined the roles of negative social reactions to sexual assault disclosure and trauma-related shame in the association between PTS severity and RAU. This was tested by examining the separate and sequential indirect effects of negative social reactions and trauma-related shame in the PTSD-RAU relation among individuals with a history of sexual assault.
METHOD: Data were collected from 235 individuals who endorsed a history of sexual assault (M(age) = 35.45, 70.5% women, 83.8% White).
RESULTS: Negative social reactions (b =.03, SE =.01, p <.05, 95% CI [.005,.06]) and trauma-related shame (b =.03, SE =.01, p <.05, 95% CI [.003,.06]), separately, and sequentially (b =.01, SE =.004, p <.05, 95% CI [.001,.02]) explained the relation between PTS severity and RAU.
CONCLUSIONS: Findings suggest that it may be valuable to assess and neutralize negative social reactions to reduce trauma-related shame and subsequent RAU among individuals with a history of sexual assault who experience more severe PTS severity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
Language: en |