Ullman Sarah E
University of Illinois Chicago, USA.
J Interpers Violence. 2025 Feb 1:8862605251315766. doi: 10.1177/08862605251315766.
Prior studies indicate that sexual assault survivor posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is influenced by the social reactions (e.g., belief and blame) and perceived helpfulness (e.g., empathy, effectiveness) of informal support providers (SPs; i.e., family, friends, and partners). This study examined how SPs' social reactions and perceived helpfulness impacted female sexual assault survivor PTSD among an ethnically diverse sample of 432 pairs of sexual assault survivors and their SPs. Path models were run separately for survivors and SPs. In the survivor model, SP's perceived ineffectiveness was significantly related to more unsupportive acknowledgment and turning against reactions, and perceived empathy was significantly related to more unsupportive acknowledgment reactions. Both turning against and unsupportive acknowledgment reactions were related to greater survivor PTSD. In the SP model, greater SP confusion about how to help the survivor was related to marginally less SP unsupportive acknowledgment and more turning against social reactions made to survivors. Greater SP empathy toward the survivor was also related to significantly less SP unsupportive acknowledgment and turning against social reactions. Finally, SP turning against social reactions was related to marginally more survivor PTSD symptoms. Results suggest that longitudinal research is needed to explore further how helping perceptions relate to survivor PTSD from both survivor and SP perspectives to inform informal support network interventions. Interventions to increase empathy toward sexual assault survivors and teach SPs how to avoid responding with negative social reactions are needed.
先前的研究表明，性侵犯幸存者的创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）受到非正式支持提供者（即家人、朋友和伴侣）的社会反应（如信念和指责）以及感知到的帮助程度（如同情、有效性）的影响。本研究调查了在432对性侵犯幸存者及其支持提供者组成的种族多样化样本中，支持提供者的社会反应和感知到的帮助程度如何影响女性性侵犯幸存者的创伤后应激障碍。分别为幸存者和支持提供者建立了路径模型。在幸存者模型中，支持提供者感知到的无效性与更多不支持的认可和敌对反应显著相关，而感知到的同情与更多不支持的认可反应显著相关。敌对反应和不支持的认可反应都与幸存者更严重的创伤后应激障碍有关。在支持提供者模型中，支持提供者对如何帮助幸存者的困惑程度越高，其对幸存者不支持的认可就略少一些，对幸存者做出的敌对社会反应就越多。支持提供者对幸存者的同情心越强，其对幸存者不支持的认可和敌对社会反应就显著越少。最后，支持提供者的敌对社会反应与幸存者略多的创伤后应激障碍症状有关。结果表明，需要进行纵向研究，从幸存者和支持提供者的角度进一步探讨帮助认知与幸存者创伤后应激障碍之间的关系，为非正式支持网络干预提供信息。需要开展干预措施，以增强对性侵犯幸存者的同情心，并教导支持提供者如何避免以负面社会反应做出回应。
