Child Sexual Abuse Experiences Mediate the Relationship Between Poverty and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

There is a growing body of evidence from developing countries which suggests there is an association between poverty and risk of common mental disorders including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). With respect to the mechanisms underlying this relationship, it is far from clear whether poverty e...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Social behavior and personality 2012-07, Vol.40 (6), p.983-984
Main Author: Collings, Steven J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Child Sexual Abuse
Children & youth
Developing Countries
Ethnicity
Females
Mediation
Post-traumatic stress disorder
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
Poverty
Psychological aspects
Risk factors
Sex
Sex crimes
Sexual Abuse
South Africa
Trauma
Validation studies
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:There is a growing body of evidence from developing countries which suggests there is an association between poverty and risk of common mental disorders including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). With respect to the mechanisms underlying this relationship, it is far from clear whether poverty exerts a direct influence on PTSD outcomes as suggested by some researchers or poverty is a risk factor for traumatic experiences, with such traumatic experiences in turn serving as determinants of PTSD. Attempting to obtain further clarity on this poverty-risk relationship, and with specific reference to child sexual abuse experiences (CSA), during 2010 the author surveyed 323 South African undergraduate students. PTSD was assessed using the Davidson Trauma Scale. Zero-order correlations indicated that poverty scores were significantly correlated with both CSA and PTSD scores, with CSA being significantly correlated with PTSD scores.
ISSN:0301-2212
1179-6391
DOI:10.2224/sbp.2012.40.6.983