Citation

Reid JA. Am. J. Crim. Justice 2023; 48(4): 945-966.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2023, College of Law Enforcement, Eastern Kentucky University, Publisher Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s12103-023-09731-x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The devastating impacts of trauma bonding on survivors of sex trafficking have been repeatedly observed by researchers and practitioners alike. Trauma bonding hinders survivors from exiting exploitive environments and facilitates a toxic cycle of repeated exploitation. Despite empirical evidence of trauma bonding among survivors of sex trafficking, no measure of trauma bonding in the context of sex trafficking has been developed or evaluated. Given this need, the current study develops and evaluates a measure of trauma bonding for young adults in the context of sex trafficking. The study involved item development and modification, pretesting of the items, survey administration, scale development using exploratory factor analysis, and lastly, scale evaluation using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. Analysis of the survey data from 619 young adults indicated that the Trauma Bonding Scale for Adults© is a harmonious measure of trauma bonding with strong internal consistency and concurrent criterion validity. Implications related to scale use by researchers and clinicians are discussed.

Keywords: Human trafficking;

Language: en

Keywords

Scale development; Scale evaluation; Sex trafficking; Trauma bonding