Behavioral Science
The Protective Effect of Emotional Support against PTSD in Survivors of Childhood Trauma and the Role of Demographic Factors in Levels of Emotional Support
Anushka Kumar
Behavioral Science
Anushka Kumar
While extensive research has now been conducted on how resiliency factors can protect against Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) following a traumatic exposure, limited studies have focused on the protective role of resiliency factors against PTSD among survivors of childhood trauma, so I sought to determine how emotional support, widely regarded as the most important resiliency factor, can buffer the association between childhood trauma and PTSD. Furthermore, I wanted to validate previous findings on the relationship between various demographic factors and emotional support to better inform programs that enhance community resilience. I performed a sub-analysis of the previously collected AURORA Freeze 3 dataset (n=2627). To measure PTSD at 3 months, emotional support, and childhood trauma, I used the PTSD Checklist from the DSM-5, PROMIS Emotional Support survey, and Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, respectively. I tested multiple linear regression models in R to find the covariate-adjusted relationships between my variables of interest and I utilized logistic regression to determine demographic factors associated with levels of emotional support. After adjusting for sex and age, childhood trauma was directly associated with PTSD and emotional support was inversely associated with PTSD. When emotional support, childhood trauma, age, sex, and trauma severity were all included in the same model, the interaction between emotional support and childhood trauma was non-significant, demonstrating emotional support cannot sufficiently moderate the additional risk of childhood trauma on PTSD following a secondary traumatic exposure in adulthood. This presents the need to conduct future research to coordinate an evidence-based intervention for this particularly vulnerable subpopulation. Furthermore, while most demographic factors were not significantly associated with emotional support, there were three exceptions that were all connected with lower levels of support: identifying as Non-Hispanic Black, being unemployed, and having never been married. Findings on at-risk subpopulations for low emotional support provide both government agencies and non-governmental organizations with the information they need to implement resilience promotion resources in a need-based manner.