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Psychology

University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Doctoral Dissertations

Theses/Dissertations

2023

PTSD

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Sexual Violence And Psychological Distress: The Roles Of Coping Self-Efficacy, Self-Blame, Shame, Activism, And Feminism, Charlotte Strauss Swanson Aug 2023

Sexual Violence And Psychological Distress: The Roles Of Coping Self-Efficacy, Self-Blame, Shame, Activism, And Feminism, Charlotte Strauss Swanson

Doctoral Dissertations

In the current study, we investigated potential direct, indirect, and moderated relations in the links between exposure to sexual violence and PTSD symptom severity and depression among a sample of 440 United States women who had experienced sexual assault in adulthood. We found that sexual violence exposure was both directly and indirectly related to PTSD symptom severity via less trauma coping self-efficacy, greater behavioral and characterological self-blame, and more shame. Sexual violence exposure was also indirectly related to depression via the same explanatory variables, except for behavioral self-blame. Contrary to our hypotheses, results indicated that involvement in anti-sexual activism and …