Emotion Regulation Difficulties in Trauma Survivors: The Role of Trauma Type and PTSD Symptom Severity
Section snippets
Participants
The study was conducted as a web-based survey. In this way it was hoped to reach a larger and more diverse sample of trauma survivors than when recruiting participants via clinical services. Past studies directly comparing web-based versus paper-and-pencil surveys found both types of research to be equally reliable (e.g., Fortson et al., 2006, Nosek et al., 2002). The final sample consisted of 616 participants (see Table 1 for demographic information). Recruitment took place in two ways. First,
Preliminary Analysis: Group Differences on Demographic Variables
Before testing the hypotheses, we first checked whether the groups differed on any demographic variables. As shown in Table 1, no difference in age, marital status, or employment between the groups emerged. However, the rate of female participants was higher in the interpersonal trauma groups than the noninterpersonal trauma group. As would be expected, the groups also differed regarding the severity of PTSD symptoms assessed with the IES-R. Survivors of early chronic interpersonal trauma
Discussion
The aim of the current study was to investigate the role of trauma type and PTSD symptom severity in emotion regulation difficulties experienced by trauma survivors. In line with the first hypothesis, significant correlations between all emotion regulation variables and PTSD symptom severity were found. Symptom levels of PTSD were related to (a) reduced levels of clarity and awareness of emotion; (b) low levels of acceptance of negative emotions, higher levels of experiential avoidance, and
Author Note
We are grateful to the numerous self-help organizations, mailing lists owners, and website hosts for their invaluable help with recruitment for this study. In addition, we would like to thank Christian Glass for his help with recruitment and data management.
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