Background

Most people will experience a traumatic event in their lifetime, but only a subset (<10%) will develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Objective

To facilitate prevention and intervention of PTSD, it is important to understand how risk and resilience factors interact with one another to explain individual differences in risk for PTSD, especially in underprivileged groups, who often experience greater burden of trauma and PTSD.

Method

The current study utilized multiple and moderated regression to examine the relation between childhood maltreatment and adulthood PTSD risk in the context of various attachment patterns and emotion dysregulation in a sample (n = 856) of mostly low-income, African American participants.

Results

Moderation analysis indicated that the strongest association between self-reported childhood maltreatment and PTSD symptoms was manifest in participants reporting the highest levels of both attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance (b = 0.22, 95% CI [0.15, 0.29], p < .001), whereas, among those low on both these dimensions (i.e., more securely attached participants), there was no significant association between childhood maltreatment and current PTSD (b = 0.07, 95% CI [−0.01, 0.14], p = .07). Separately, multiple regression predicting current PTSD symptoms revealed an effect size for the two attachment dimensions similar to that of emotion dysregulation, while controlling for childhood maltreatment.

Conclusions

These findings suggest more secure attachment may buffer against the deleterious effects of childhood maltreatment, and both attachment difficulties and emotion dysregulation serve as robust correlates of adulthood PTSD.

中文翻译：

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在市中心样本中，依恋和情绪失调在儿童虐待与 PTSD 之间的关系中的作用

背景

大多数人一生中都会经历一次创伤性事件，但只有一小部分人（<10%）会患上创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）。

客观的

为促进 PTSD 的预防和干预，重要的是要了解风险和复原力因素如何相互作用，以解释 PTSD 风险的个体差异，特别是在弱势群体中，他们经常承受更大的创伤和 PTSD 负担。

方法

目前的研究利用多元回归和适度回归来检查儿童虐待与成年 PTSD 风险之间的关系，在样本（n  = 856）中，大多数为低收入的非裔美国人参与者的各种依恋模式和情绪失调。

结果

适度分析表明，自我报告的童年虐待与 PTSD 症状之间最强的关联体现在报告最高水平的依恋焦虑和依恋回避的参与者中 ( b  = 0.22, 95% CI [0.15, 0.29], p  < .001) ，而在这两个维度都较低的人（即更安全依恋的参与者）中，儿童期虐待与当前的 PTSD 之间没有显着关联（b  = 0.07, 95% CI [-0.01, 0.14], p  = .07） . 另外，预测当前 PTSD 症状的多元回归揭示了两个依恋维度的效应大小，类似于情绪失调，同时控制了儿童虐待。

结论

这些发现表明，更安全的依恋可能会缓冲童年虐待的有害影响，依恋困难和情绪失调都是成年期 PTSD 的有力相关因素。