title: Witnessing versus experiencing direct violence in childhood as correlates of adulthood PTSD.
abstract: Research has established that childhood violence exposure plays a considerable role in the development of deleterious outcomes in childhood and adulthood. However, important gaps remain in understanding the complex relationships between early violence exposure, adulthood trauma exposure, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This study investigates whether two specific types of childhood violence exposure (witnessing domestic violence and experiencing child abuse) are uniquely associated with PTSD while controlling for additional trauma experience. In a community sample of pregnant women, this study finds that childhood abuse only and combined exposure to abuse and witnessing abuse correlated to current and lifetime PTSD diagnoses, but witnessing alone did not. In addition, adult nonviolence trauma histories account for more variance in PTSD than did any early violence exposure type.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Research on Women and Gender, University of Michigan, 204 South State Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
authors.forename: Madhur R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Kulkarni
authors.forename: Sandra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Graham-Bermann
authors.forename: Sheila A M
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Rauch
authors.forename: Julia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Seng
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001364:Awareness; D002649:Child Abuse / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D008824:Michigan; D016017:Odds Ratio; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000209:etiology*; D014754:Violence / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult