Shattered Assumptions, Coping and Religiosity in Intimate Partner Violence Survivors: A Partial Explanation for Variation in PTSD Symptoms?

Abstract

Every year, millions of women around the globe are exposed to violence in intimate relationships. The cost of this violence is substantial, affecting women’s economic, physical and emotional health. One common outcome of intimate partner violence (IPV) is Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which has been shown to be disproportionately high in IPV survivors in relation to the general population. However, various factors have been implicated that can serve either to protect against or put at risk for PTSD symptom development in IPV survivors. The current project seeks to explore several factors that have been implicated in PTSD symptoms, such as world assumptions, coping style and religiosity, and to determine whether these place women at risk for PTSD symptoms following IPV. A secondary aim is to establish whether these factors operate differentially as a function of ethnicity in predicting PTSD symptoms.

The present work incorporated the theory of shattered assumptions to the study of IPV survivors, finding that shattered assumptions was related to exposure to more overall IPV, as well as heightened reports of PTSD symptoms. Coping style was found to be related to both IPV and PTSD; namely, emotion-focused coping was related to more overall IPV and higher reports of PTSD. However, a moderation analysis found that problem-focused coping in the face of high rates of IPV similarly increased risk for PTSD symptoms. Finally, religiosity was found to be related to PTSD such that individuals who reported more overall religious involvement also reported heightened levels of PTSD, confirming the hypotheses that religiosity would signal distress and attempts to cope for IPV survivors.

Consistent with the hypotheses, several interethnic differences emerged in the data. African American women, for example, reported more IPV and more religiosity than their European American counterparts. Contrary to the hypotheses, however, African American women reported equivalent rates of PTSD and shattered assumptions in relation to European American women. The meaning behind religiosity, shattered assumptions and coping in relationship to PTSD symptoms is discussed, as well as the implication for these factors in relationship to ethnicity. A model is proposed for future testing with a larger sample size.