Posttraumatic stress symptoms and risky alcohol use: The roles of negative social reactions to sexual assault disclosure and trauma-related shame.

Introduction: Posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTS) and risky alcohol use (RAU) frequently co-occur among those with a history of sexual assault, and this co-occurrence has been linked to severe psychosocial and functional impairment.

Objective: The current study examined the roles of negative social reactions to sexual assault disclosure and trauma-related shame in the association between PTS severity and RAU. This was tested by examining the separate and sequential indirect effects of negative social reactions and trauma-related shame in the PTSD-RAU relation among individuals with a history of sexual assault.

Method: Data were collected from 235 individuals who endorsed a history of sexual assault ( = 35.45, 70.5% women, 83.8% White).

Results: Negative social reactions ( = .03, = .01, < .05, 95% CI [.005, .06]) and trauma-related shame ( = .03, = .01, < .05, 95% CI [.003, .06]), separately, and sequentially ( = .01, = .004, < .05, 95% CI [.001, .02]) explained the relation between PTS severity and RAU.

Conclusions: Findings suggest that it may be valuable to assess and neutralize negative social reactions to reduce trauma-related shame and subsequent RAU among individuals with a history of sexual assault who experience more severe PTS severity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).