title: Childhood Maltreatment and PTSD: Spiritual Well-Being and Intimate Partner Violence as Mediators.
abstract: Childhood maltreatment places individuals, including African American women who are undereducated and economically disadvantaged, at risk for developing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Participants were 192 African American women with a history in the prior year of both a suicide attempt and intimate partner violence (IPV) exposure. They were recruited from a public hospital that provides medical and mental health treatment to mostly low-income patients. A simple mediator model was used to examine if (1) existential well-being (sense of purpose) and/or religious well-being (relationship with God) mediated the link between childhood maltreatment and adult PTSD symptoms. Sequential multiple mediator models determined if physical and nonphysical IPV enhanced our understanding of the mediational association among the aforementioned variables. Findings suggest that existential well-being mediated the association between childhood maltreatment and adult PTSD symptoms in a simple mediator model, and existential well-being and recent nonphysical IPV served as sequential multiple mediators of this link. However, religious well-being and physical IPV were not significant mediators. Findings underscore the importance of enhancing existential well-being in the treatment of suicidal African American women with a history of childhood maltreatment and IPV.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Indiana University.
authors.forename: Huaiyu
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, George Washington University.
authors.forename: Delishia M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Pittman
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Emory University School of Medicine.
authors.forename: Dorian A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Lamis
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Marymount University.
authors.forename: Nicole L
authors.initials: NL
authors.lastname: Fischer
authors.affiliation: Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Department of Disabilities.
authors.forename: Tomina J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Schwenke
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Yale University.
authors.forename: Erika R
authors.initials: ER
authors.lastname: Carr
authors.affiliation: Georgia Regional Hospital at Atlanta.
authors.forename: Sanjay
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Shah
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Emory University School of Medicine.
authors.forename: Nadine J
authors.initials: NJ
authors.lastname: Kaslow
keywords: African American women; PTSD symptoms; existential well-being; religious well-being; spouse abuse