Research Project on PTSD Patients

Research Hypothesis 2: Patients with histories of childhood sexual abuse will show increase in the physical symptoms of PTSD as compared with patients who do not have a history of childhood sexual abuse.

History of Childhood Sexual Abuse: For the purposes of this study, childhood sexual abuse will be limited to an abuse situation consisting of one abuser (not multiple abusers) who victimized the subject for no less than one year and no more than two years. Also, the abuser must be a relative or step-parent but not a biological parent.

Research has shown that physical and emotional consequences of abuse can vary according to differences in the abuse situation (e.g. Hallett, 1988; Briere & Runtz, 1988). Therefore, it is hoped that by restricting the abuse situation only to the criteria specified above, the study will control for PTSD response variance due to different characteristics of patient's abuse situation.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (emotional symptoms): The emotional symptoms of PTSD will be operationally defined as patients' scores on the Impact of Event Scale (Horowitz, Wilner & Alvarez, 1979) which according to its authors was designed to assess the emotional sequelae of extreme stress.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (physic

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he split half reliability of the total scale is .86. The internal consistency of these subscales, using Cronbach's alpha, was .78 and .82 respectively. The test-retest reliability was .87 for the total stress core, .80 for the intrusion subscale, and .79 for the avoidance subscale. Examples of scale items involve subjects being required to rate the extent to which they experience various DSM III symptoms such as the intrusion into consciousness of unbidden ideas, feelings, and images; and consciously recognized denial or avoidance of stress-related themes and emotional responses. Because of the extensive testing of the reliability and validity of the IES conducted by Horowitz et al (1980), and because the IES has been used in some studies of childhood sexual abuse and its relation to PTSD (see: Redner & Den-Herder, 1992; Saunders, Villeponteaux & Lipovsky, 1992; Strick & Wilcoxon, 1991), the instrument is judged suitable for use in the proposed study. Physical Symptoms of PTSD Questionnaire (PSTDQ) Because the existing instruments for measuring PTSD do not focus strictly upon the physical symptoms of the disorder, nor do they provide scales specifically designed to assess physical symptoms, it was necessary for the researc
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