title: The shared and specific relationships between exposure to potentially traumatic events and transdiagnostic dimensions of psychopathology.
abstract: The experience of traumatic events has been linked to the development of psychopathology. Changing perspectives on psychopathology have resulted in the hypothesis that broad dimensional constructs account for the majority of variance across putatively distinct disorders. As such, traumatic events may be associated with several disorders due to their relationship with these broad dimensions rather than any direct disorder-specific relationship. The current study used data from 8871 Australians to test this hypothesis. Two broad dimensions accounted for the majority of relationships between traumatic events and mental and substance use disorders. Direct relationships remained between post-traumatic stress disorder and six categories of traumatic events in the total population and between drug dependence and accidents/disasters for males only. These results have strong implications for how psychopathology is conceptualized and offer some evidence that traumatic events are associated with an increased likelihood of experiencing psychopathology in general.
authors.affiliation: NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence in Mental Health and Substance Use, National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, UNSW Australia, Sydney, Australia. Electronic address: Matthews@unsw.edu.au.
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sunderland
authors.affiliation: NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence in Mental Health and Substance Use, National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, UNSW Australia, Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: Natacha
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Carragher
authors.affiliation: NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence in Mental Health and Substance Use, National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, UNSW Australia, Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: Cath
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Chapman
authors.affiliation: NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence in Mental Health and Substance Use, National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, UNSW Australia, Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: Katherine
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Mills
authors.affiliation: NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence in Mental Health and Substance Use, National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, UNSW Australia, Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: Maree
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Teesson
authors.affiliation: School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.
authors.forename: Emma
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Lockwood
authors.affiliation: Australian Centre for Posttraumatic Mental Health, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Forbes
authors.affiliation: NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence in Mental Health and Substance Use, National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, UNSW Australia, Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: Tim
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Slade
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001315:Australia; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011599:Psychopathology; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000175:diagnosis*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Comorbidity; Dimensional assessment; Psychopathology; Structural equation modelling; Traumatic events