University of Nebraska - Lincoln, United States.
Child Abuse Negl. 2013 Nov;37(11):934-43. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2013.03.005. Epub 2013 Apr 25.
The current study investigates the moderating effect of perceived social support on associations between child maltreatment severity and adult trauma symptoms. We extend the existing literature by examining the roles of severity of multiple maltreatment types (i.e., sexual, physical, and emotional abuse; physical and emotional neglect) and gender in this process.
The sample included 372 newlywed individuals recruited from marriage license records. Participants completed a number of self-report questionnaires measuring the nature and severity of child maltreatment history, perceived social support from friends and family, and trauma-related symptoms. These questionnaires were part of a larger study, investigating marital and intrapersonal functioning. We conducted separate, two-step hierarchical multiple regression models for perceived social support from family and perceived social support from friends. In each of these models, total trauma symptomatology was predicted from each child maltreatment severity variable, perceived social support, and the product of the two variables. In order to examine the role of gender, we conducted separate analyses for women and men.
As hypothesized, increased severity of several maltreatment types (sexual abuse, emotional abuse, emotional neglect, and physical neglect) predicted greater trauma symptoms for both women and men, and increased physical abuse severity predicted greater trauma symptoms for women. Perceived social support from both family and friends predicted lower trauma symptoms across all levels of maltreatment for men. For women, greater perceived social support from friends, but not from family, predicted decreased trauma symptoms. Finally, among women, perceived social support from family interacted with child maltreatment such that, as the severity of maltreatment (physical and emotional abuse, emotional neglect) increased, the buffering effect of perceived social support from family on trauma symptoms diminished.
The results of the current study shed new light on the potential for social support to shield individuals against long-term trauma symptoms, and suggest the importance of strengthening perceptions of available social support when working with adult survivors of child maltreatment.
本研究调查了知觉社会支持对儿童虐待严重程度与成人创伤症状之间关联的调节作用。我们通过检查多种虐待类型（即性虐待、身体虐待和情感虐待；身体忽视和情感忽视）严重程度以及性别的作用，扩展了现有文献。
样本包括从结婚许可证记录中招募的 372 对新婚夫妇。参与者完成了一些自我报告问卷，这些问卷测量了儿童虐待史的性质和严重程度、来自朋友和家人的知觉社会支持以及与创伤相关的症状。这些问卷是一项更大研究的一部分，该研究调查了婚姻和人际功能。我们对来自家庭的知觉社会支持和来自朋友的知觉社会支持分别进行了两步分层多元回归模型。在这些模型中，总创伤症状是从每个儿童虐待严重程度变量、知觉社会支持和两个变量的乘积来预测的。为了检验性别的作用，我们对女性和男性分别进行了分析。
正如假设的那样，几种虐待类型（性虐待、情感虐待、情感忽视和身体忽视）的严重程度增加预测了男女的创伤症状更严重，身体虐待严重程度增加预测了女性的创伤症状更严重。来自家庭和朋友的知觉社会支持都预测了男性在所有虐待水平下的创伤症状较低。对于女性，来自朋友的更大的知觉社会支持，但不是来自家庭的，预测了创伤症状的减少。最后，在女性中，家庭知觉社会支持与儿童虐待相互作用，随着虐待（身体和情感虐待、情感忽视）的严重程度增加，家庭知觉社会支持对创伤症状的缓冲作用减弱。
本研究的结果为社会支持保护个体免受长期创伤症状的影响提供了新的视角，并表明在与儿童虐待的成年幸存者合作时，加强对可用社会支持的认识的重要性。
