The interaction of pre- and peritraumatic risk factors is not well understood.
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Increased data-driven processing (DDP) during analog trauma predicted intrusion load.
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This was particularly the case in individuals reporting < three lifetime adversities.
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DDP had little effect on intrusion load in individuals with low adversity.
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Intrusions are the result of poorly elaborated, perceptually-formed memory traces.
Abstract
Background and objectives
Although most trauma survivors experience some intrusive recollections of the traumatic event, only few subsequently develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A well-established proximal risk-factor predictive of post-trauma psychopathology is peritraumatic cognitive processing. Another, more distal risk-factor is pre-trauma lifetime adversity. The present experimental analogue study tested the hypothesis that pre-trauma lifetime adversity interacts with peritraumatic perceptual (i.e., data-driven) processing to predict intrusive memory development.
Methods
Fifty-three young adult women (non-clinical sample) indicated how much data-driven and conceptual processing they had engaged in while watching aversive film-clips (i.e., analogue trauma). On the subsequent three days, they reported intrusions of those clips. Moderation analyses tested for an interaction effect between lifetime adversity and data-driven processing in predicting intrusion load (number of intrusions weighted for their overall distress).
Results
Increased data-driven processing predicted intrusion load primarily in individuals reporting more than three lifetime adversities, explaining 55% of variance. No such relationship was found for conceptual processing.
Limitations
Present analogue findings have yet to be replicated in a clinical population. Moreover, the conceptual processing scale was restricted by low internal consistency.
Conclusion
Present findings support the idea that intrusions are the result of poorly elaborated and primarily perceptually-formed memory traces; however, this was primarily the case in vulnerable individuals reporting several lifetime adversities. Results replicate the importance of peritraumatic processing in intrusion development but additionally point to a moderating effect of lifetime adversity.