The protective role of friendship on the effects of childhood abuse and depression.

Background: This study explored the relationships between childhood maltreatment (sexual, physical, and emotional abuse, as well as neglect), adult depression, and perceived social support from family and friends.

Methods: As part of an NIH-funded study of risk and resilience at a public urban hospital in Atlanta, 378 men and women recruited from the primary care and obstetrics gynecology clinic waiting areas answered questions about developmental history, traumatic experiences, current relationship support, and depressive symptoms.

Results: Childhood emotional abuse and neglect proved more predictive of adult depression than childhood sexual or physical abuse.

Treatment barriers for low-income, urban African Americans with undiagnosed posttraumatic stress disorder.

African Americans in low-income, urban communities are at high risk for exposure to traumatic events as well as for symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Approximately 22% of 220 participants recruited from urban hospital medical clinics met survey criteria for PTSD. Among the common traumas were having relatives/friends murdered (47%), being attacked with weapons (64% of men), and being sexually attacked (36% of women).

Association of FKBP5 polymorphisms and childhood abuse with risk of posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms in adults.

Context: In addition to trauma exposure, other factors contribute to risk for development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in adulthood. Both genetic and environmental factors are contributory, with child abuse providing significant risk liability.

Objective: To increase understanding of genetic and environmental risk factors as well as their interaction in the development of PTSD by gene x environment interactions of child abuse, level of non-child abuse trauma exposure, and genetic polymorphisms at the stress-related gene FKBP5.

Influence of child abuse on adult depression: moderation by the corticotropin-releasing hormone receptor gene.

Context: Genetic inheritance and developmental life stress both contribute to major depressive disorder in adults. Child abuse and trauma alter the endogenous stress response, principally corticotropin-releasing hormone and its downstream effectors, suggesting that a gene x environment interaction at this locus may be important in depression.

Objective: To examine whether the effects of child abuse on adult depressive symptoms are moderated by genetic polymorphisms within the corticotropin-releasing hormone type 1 receptor (CRHR1) gene.

Language use in imagined dialogue and narrative disclosures of trauma.

Support exists in many populations for the use of written disclosure to express thoughts and emotions about a traumatic experience. The present study examined language use in a variation of the writing task modified to include an imagined dialogue with another person. We hypothesized that this method would increase cognitive, affective, and present-tense word use, all of which are linked with beneficial outcomes from writing.

Group therapy for incarcerated women who experienced interpersonal violence: a pilot study.

This study evaluated effectiveness of group therapy for incarcerated women with histories of childhood sexual and/or physical abuse. The intervention was based on a two-stage model of trauma treatment and included Dialectical Behavior Therapy skills and writing assignments. We randomly assigned 24 participants to group treatment (13 completed) and 25 to a no-contact comparison condition (18 completed).

A model for predicting dating violence: anxious attachment, angry temperament, and need for relationship control.

Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test a model incorporating anxious attachment, angry temperament, and attempts to control one's partner as predictors of the severity and frequency of dating violence. To date, these concepts have not been clearly established as having direct or indirect effects on dating violence. It was hypothesized that anxious attachment and angry temperament would influence the need for and attempts to control one's partner which, in turn, would predict a person's actual use of force.