The relationship between psychological intimate partner violence and ptsd: Mediating role of peritraumatic distress, peritraumatic sense of control and posttraumatic emotions

This study examined the role of peritraumatic distress, perceived control and trauma related fear, helplessness, shame and anger as mediators between psychological violence stressors in intimate relationship and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). To measure psychological violence stressors comprehensively, Intimate Partner Psychological Violence Scale was developed and items were tested in a pilot study which involved 337 participants. The main study involved conveniently recruited sample of 1012 women who reported an experience of intimate partner violence. The Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient of the scale was .98. The construct validity of the scale was examined using a factor analysis which obtained eight constructs including neglecting emotional and physical needs, fear inducing threats of harm (general), restriction of freedom / jealousy, degrading treatment, fear inducing threats of harm during conflict (situational), destroying trust, blaming and gaslighting were observed. Among women 42.9% experienced only psychological violence and 35.3% of these had PTSD. The PTSD rate among the participants who experienced physical/sexual/ psychological violence was 50.7%. The structural equation modeling was conducted to test the hypothesized relationships among variable while controlling for the effects of physical and sexual violence. Perceived control over the psychological violence stressors determines the level of peritraumatic distress which predicted posttraumatic fear and helplessness, shame and anger. These posttraumatic emotions affected the severity of PTSD symptoms. It was found that fear due to an ongoing sense of threat to safety and sense of loss of control over life in general had the largest effect on PTSD. These findings showed that psychological violence stressors could lead to traumatic stress symptoms and they showed their effect through perceived fear and loss of control. These findings suggest that psychological treatments that alleviate fear and enhance sense of control over one's life would be effective in PTSD related to intimate partner violence.