The deterioration and mobilization effects of trauma on social support: childhood maltreatment and adulthood military violence in a Palestinian community sample.

OBJECTIVES

To show that exposure to childhood maltreatment deteriorates, whereas exposure to adulthood military violence mobilizes social support; second, to show that associations between traumatic events and mental health problems are mediated through social support and, subsequently, adulthood military violence is associated with low level and childhood maltreatment with high level of mental health symptoms; third, to explore whether the moderating (protecting) effect of sufficient and satisfactory social support would differ among victims of childhood maltreatment and adulthood military violence.

METHOD

The participants were a random-sample of Palestinian men and women (n=585) of 16-60 years of age. Exposure to military violence in adulthood was assessed by the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire (HTQ_I), and to childhood maltreatment by a 13-item questionnaire developed for the study. A Social Network Schedule was applied to assess the function, source, and satisfaction with social support, and the Revised SCL90-R Symptoms Checklist to assess mental health symptoms.

RESULTS

Findings supported our hypothesis that exposure to childhood maltreatment was associated with low levels of social support, whereas exposure to adulthood military violence was associated with high levels of social support. Contrary to our second hypothesis, both childhood maltreatment and adulthood military violence were associated with high levels of mental health symptoms. Finally, high level and satisfactory social support moderated the association between exposure to military violence in adulthood and mental health symptoms, but not between childhood maltreatment and mental health symptoms.

CONCLUSION

The findings emphasize that the nature of trauma, that is, whether familial or political, determines the availability of protective resources versus vulnerability, which should be considered when tailoring interventions to trauma victims.