The effect of war injury and combat deployment on military wives' mental health symptoms.

BACKGROUND: Although much has been learned about the physical and psychological impacts of deployment and combat injury on military service members, less is known about the effects of these experiences on military spouses. METHODS: The present study examined self-reported mental health symptoms (using the Brief Symptom Inventory [BSI]-18 and the posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD] Checklist [PCL-C]) in wives of service members who were combat-injured (CI; n = 60); noninjured with cumulative deployment longer than 11 months (NI-High; n = 51); and noninjured with cumulativel deployment less than 11 months (NI-Low; n = 53). RESULTS: 36.7% and 11.7% of CI wives endorsed above threshold symptoms on the PCL-C and overall BSI-18, respectively. Multivariate linear regressions revealed that being a CI wife was associated with higher PCL-C, overall BSI-18, and BSI-18 anxiety subscale scores compared to NI-Low wives in models adjusted for individual and family characteristics, as well as prior trauma and childhood adversities. Compared with the NI-High group, the CI group was associated with higher overall BSI-18 scores. CONCLUSIONS: While CI wives evidenced fewer mental symptoms than expected, these findings suggest a negative impact of service member's combat injury on wives' mental health above that attributable to deployment, highlighting the need for trauma-informed interventions designed to support the needs of military wives affected by combat injury.

Development of the Bereavement and Interpersonal Domains codebook.

We describe the development of an empirically-derived codebook for qualitative data concerning the impact of grief on the interpersonal relationships of bereaved individuals. Relatives (N = 39) of deceased military service members participated in focus groups concerning how grief influenced their relationships across multiple interpersonal domains, including family, friends, community, and with the deceased. Focus group transcripts were coded using a stepwise process consistent with grounded theory to identify and categorize recurrent themes. The process yielded a comprehensive codebook containing 44 nodes with definitions and examples. The codebook provides researchers with an empirically-grounded analytic tool for future studies on bereavement.

Neuroticism Increases PTSD Symptom Severity by Amplifying the Emotionality, Rehearsal, and Centrality of Trauma Memories.

OBJECTIVE: Although it is well established that neuroticism increases the risk of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), little is known about the mechanisms that promote PTSD in individuals with elevated levels of neuroticism. Across two studies, we examined the cognitive-affective processes through which neuroticism leads to greater PTSD symptom severity. METHOD: Community-dwelling adults with trauma histories varying widely in severity (Study 1) and clinically diagnosed individuals exposed to DSM-IV-TR A1 criterion traumas (Study 2) completed measures of neuroticism, negative affectivity, trauma memory characteristics, and PTSD symptom severity. RESULTS: Longitudinal data in Study 1 showed that individuals with higher scores on two measures of neuroticism assessed approximately three decades apart in young adulthood and midlife reported trauma memories accompanied by more intense physiological reactions, more frequent involuntary rehearsal, and greater perceived centrality to identity in older adulthood. These properties of trauma memories were in turn associated with more severe PTSD symptoms. Study 2 replicated these findings using cross-sectional data from individuals with severe trauma histories and three additional measures of neuroticism. CONCLUSIONS: Results suggest that neuroticism leads to PTSD symptoms by magnifying the emotionality, availability, and centrality of trauma memories as proposed in mnemonic models of PTSD.

All my children: The roles of semantic category and phonetic similarity in the misnaming of familiar individuals.

Despite knowing a familiar individual (such as a daughter) well, anecdotal evidence suggests that naming errors can occur among very familiar individuals. Here, we investigate the conditions surrounding these types of errors, or misnamings, in which a person (the misnamer) incorrectly calls a familiar individual (the misnamed) by someone else's name (the named). Across 5 studies including over 1,700 participants, we investigated the prevalence of the phenomenon of misnaming, identified factors underlying why it may occur, and tested potential mechanisms. We included undergraduates and MTurk workers and asked questions of both the misnamed and the misnamer. We find that familiar individuals are often misnamed with the name of another member of the same semantic category; family members are misnamed with another family member's name and friends are misnamed with another friend's name. Phonetic similarity between names also leads to misnamings; however, the size of this effect was smaller than that of the semantic category effect. Overall, the misnaming of familiar individuals is driven by the relationship between the misnamer, misnamed, and named; phonetic similarity between the incorrect name used by the misnamer and the correct name also plays a role in misnaming.

Coping style and memory specificity in adolescents and adults with histories of child sexual abuse.

Individuals with histories of childhood trauma may adopt a nonspecific memory retrieval strategy to avoid unpleasant and intrusive memories. In a sample of 93 adolescents and adults with or without histories of child sexual abuse (CSA), we tested the hypothesis that nonspecific memory retrieval is related to an individual's general tendency to use avoidant (i.e., distancing) coping as a personal problem-solving or coping strategy, especially in victims of CSA. We also examined age differences and other individual differences (e.g., trauma-related psychopathology) as predictors of nonspecific memories. Distancing coping was significantly associated with less specific autobiographical memory. Younger age, lower vocabulary scores, and non-CSA childhood maltreatment (i.e., physical and emotional abuse) also uniquely predicted less autobiographical memory specificity, whereas trauma-related psychopathology was associated with more specific memory. Implications for the development of autobiographical memory retrieval in the context of coping with childhood maltreatment are discussed.

Changes in neuroticism following trauma exposure.

Using longitudinal data, the present study examined change in midlife neuroticism following trauma exposure. Our primary analyses included 670 participants (M(age) = 60.55; 65.22% male, 99.70% Caucasian) who completed the NEO Personality Inventory at ages 42 and 50 and reported their lifetime exposure to traumatic events approximately 10 years later. No differences in pre- and post-trauma neuroticism scores were found among individuals who experienced all of their lifetime traumas in the interval between the personality assessments. Results were instead consistent with normative age-related declines in neuroticism throughout adulthood. Furthermore, longitudinal changes in neuroticism scores did not differ between individuals with and without histories of midlife trauma exposure. Examination of change in neuroticism following life-threatening traumas yielded a comparable pattern of results. Analysis of facet-level scores largely replicated findings from the domain scores. Overall, our findings suggest that neuroticism does not reliably change following exposure to traumatic events in middle adulthood. Supplemental analyses indicated that individuals exposed to life-threatening traumas in childhood or adolescence reported higher midlife neuroticism than individuals who experienced severe traumas in adulthood. Life-threatening traumatic events encountered early in life may have a more pronounced impact on adulthood personality than recent traumatic events.

Cumulative exposure to traumatic events in older adults.

OBJECTIVES: The present study examined the impact of cumulative trauma exposure on current posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom severity in a nonclinical sample of adults in their 60s. The predictive utility of cumulative trauma exposure was compared to other known predictors of PTSD, including trauma severity, personality traits, social support, and event centrality. METHOD: Community-dwelling adults (n = 2515) from the crest of the Baby Boom generation completed the Traumatic Life Events Questionnaire, the PTSD Checklist, the NEO Personality Inventory, the Centrality of Event Scale, and rated their current social support. RESULTS: Cumulative trauma exposure predicted greater PTSD symptom severity in hierarchical regression analyses consistent with a dose-response model. Neuroticism and event centrality also emerged as robust predictors of PTSD symptom severity. In contrast, the severity of individuals' single most distressing life event, as measured by self-report ratings of the A1 PTSD diagnostic criterion, did not add explanatory variance to the model. Analyses concerning event categories revealed that cumulative exposure to childhood violence and adulthood physical assaults were most strongly associated with PTSD symptom severity in older adulthood. Moreover, cumulative self-oriented events accounted for a larger percentage of variance in symptom severity compared to events directed at others. CONCLUSION: Our findings suggest that the cumulative impact of exposure to traumatic events throughout the life course contributes significantly to posttraumatic stress in older adulthood above and beyond other known predictors of PTSD.

Operational Definitions of Poly-Victimization: A Scoping Review.

Throughout the last two decades, research on poly-victimization (PV) has evolved from examinations of a core set of past-year victimization types in youth samples to investigations of a broad range of victimization types experienced during variable time intervals in diverse samples of varying ages. As the concept of PV expands, greater clarity regarding the definition and measurement of PV is needed to advance understanding of its risk and protective factors as well as its associated outcomes. This scoping review aimed to (a) identify approaches used to operationally define and measure PV across studies and (b) synthesize empirical findings concerning risk factors and outcomes associated with PV. A systematic search of peer-reviewed research published before 2022 across 12 databases yielded 98 studies that met inclusion criteria. Study characteristics including the research design, sample type, victimization timeframe, operational definition(s) of PV, measurement of PV, analytic methods, and key findings were synthesized across studies. Findings indicated that the majority of reviewed studies were cross-sectional investigations that utilized categorical measures of lifetime PV in samples of youth. Results also demonstrated that PV is robustly associated with a broad range of predictors, including mental health symptoms and diagnoses as well as family- and community-level factors. PV is also associated with numerous adverse outcomes including depression, anxiety, suicidality, substance use, and delinquency across diverse study types and populations. Future research that examines the conditional effects of PV is needed to identify subgroups of individuals at higher risk of adverse outcomes following PV and modifiable targets for interventions.

Overview and Design of the Child Maltreatment in Military Families Life Course Study.

OBJECTIVE: This report presents an overview of the objectives, design, and analytic strategy of the Child Maltreatment in Military Families Life Course Study, an investigation of factors associated with child maltreatment in active duty military families. METHOD: The study uses a case-control retrospective research design and discrete-time survival methodology to examine service member demographic characteristics, family characteristics, military-related characteristics, and military family life events associated with child maltreatment incidents that meet the Department of Defense definition of child abuse or neglect. The sample includes all active duty families with a first occurrence of child maltreatment anytime between Fiscal Year (FY) 2009 and FY 2018 (n = 28,684), and a representative sample of control families with children under age of 18 during the same period (n = 589,417). Analyses include child maltreatment and domestic abuse data from the Family Advocacy Program Central Registry; sponsor socio-demographic, military-related, and family data from the Active Duty Military Personnel Master and Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System data files; deployment data from the Contingency Tracking System; and mental health data from the Medical Data Repository. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Study results identify risk and protective factors associated with child maltreatment in military families, subgroups at elevated risk of child maltreatment, and periods of heightened risk during the military family life course. These results are expected to improve the ability to identify families most at-risk for particular types of child maltreatment and inform prevention strategies that promote the health and safety of military families.

Autobiographical memory specificity in child sexual abuse victims.

The present study examined the specificity of autobiographical memory in adolescents and adults with versus without child sexual abuse (CSA) histories. Eighty-five participants, approximately half of whom per age group had experienced CSA, were tested on the autobiographical memory interview. Individual difference measures, including those for trauma-related psychopathology, were also administered. Findings revealed developmental differences in the relation between autobiographical memory specificity and CSA. Even with depression statistically controlled, reduced memory specificity in CSA victims relative to controls was observed among adolescents but not among adults. A higher number of posttraumatic stress disorder criteria met predicted more specific childhood memories in participants who reported CSA as their most traumatic life event. These findings contribute to the scientific understanding of childhood trauma and autobiographical memory functioning and underscore the importance of considering the role of age and degree of traumatization within the study of autobiographical memory.

Latent classes of child neglect types and associated characteristics.

BACKGROUND: Children who experience neglect typically endure multiple types of neglect and abuse during a single maltreatment incident. However, research on the phenomenology and predictors of neglect types has primarily examined neglect types in isolation. OBJECTIVE: To advance understanding of neglect incidents that more accurately reflect the experiences of children who have been neglected, we examined latent classes of neglect defined by co-occurring neglect types and multiple forms of abuse. To inform efforts to identify families at-risk for particular classes of neglect, associations between child, parent, and family characteristics and latent classes were examined. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: 390 child neglect incidents substantiated at U.S. Army installations. METHODS: Neglect types and incident severity were coded using the Modified Maltreatment Classification System. Child, parent, and family characteristics were coded using information drawn from case records. RESULTS: Latent class analysis yielded 5 classes: exposure to violence, failure to provide, supervisory lapses, substance-related endangerment, and non-specific. The exposure to violence and substance-related endangerment classes were characterized as highly severe. High and low severity classes were associated with distinct child, parent, and family characteristics. The latent classes were also differentiated by distal outcomes, including probability of law enforcement investigation, child removal from home, and offender removal from home. CONCLUSIONS: By identifying the types of neglect and abuse that are likely to occur concomitantly as well as the child, parent, and family characteristics associated with increased risk of latent classes of neglect, results advance knowledge regarding the phenomenology of neglect types and inform prevention efforts.

Mental Health, Ill-Defined Conditions, and Health Care Utilization Following Bereavement: A Prospective Case-Control Study.

BACKGROUND: Bereavement has been associated with increases in immune/inflammatory and neuroendocrine reactions, cardiovascular events, nonspecific physical symptoms, mental conditions, and health care utilization. However, little is known about bereavement effects in younger samples, multiple health effects within samples, or prebereavement to postbereavement health changes. OBJECTIVE: To determine the effect of bereavement on the prevalence of medical conditions and utilization of health care. METHODS: This study examined the prevalence of 15 medical conditions and health care utilization before and in the first and second years after bereavement in a population of 1375 U.S. military widows and compared them to those of 1375 nonbereaved U.S. military control wives. RESULTS: Compared with controls, widows showed greater increases in prebereavement levels of prevalence of ill-defined conditions and mental health conditions in years 1 and 2 following bereavement. Health care utilization also increased for widows compared with controls. Utilization was highest for widows with comorbid ill-defined conditions and mental health conditions. CONCLUSIONS: The increased prevalence of both ill-defined conditions and mental health diagnoses following bereavement and the resultant need for increased health care utilization in this help-seeking sample suggest a need for proactive health monitoring of all military widows to identify and treat mental health conditions, as well as recognize manifestations of physical symptoms, in those who may not seek treatment.

Child maltreatment and memory.

Exposure to childhood trauma, especially child maltreatment, has important implications for memory of emotionally distressing experiences. These implications stem from cognitive, socio-emotional, mental health, and neurobiological consequences of maltreatment and can be at least partially explained by current theories concerning the effects of childhood trauma. In this review, two main hypotheses are advanced: (a) Maltreatment in childhood is associated with especially robust memory for emotionally distressing material in many individuals, but (b) maltreatment can impair memory for such material in individuals who defensively avoid it. Support for these hypotheses comes from research on child abuse victims' memory and suggestibility regarding distressing but nonabusive events, memory for child abuse itself, and autobiographical memory. However, more direct investigations are needed to test precisely when and how childhood trauma affects memory for emotionally significant, distressing experiences. Legal implications and future directions are discussed.

False memory for trauma-related Deese-Roediger-McDermott lists in adolescents and adults with histories of child sexual abuse.

The purpose of the present research was to examine Deese-Roediger-McDermott false memory for trauma-related and nontrauma-related lists in adolescents and adults with and without documented histories of child sexual abuse (CSA). Individual differences in psychopathology and adult attachment were also explored. Participants were administered free recall and recognition tests after hearing CSA, negative, neutral, and positive Deese-Roediger-McDermott lists. In free recall, CSA and negative lists produced the most false memory. In sharp contrast, for recognition, CSA lists enjoyed the highest d' scores. CSA-group adolescents who evinced greater posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms had higher rates of false memory compared to (a) non-CSA group adolescents with higher PTSD symptom scores (free recall), and (b) CSA-group adolescents with lower PTSD symptom scores (recognition). Regression analyses revealed that individuals with higher PTSD scores and greater fearful-avoidant attachment tendencies showed less proficient memory monitoring for CSA lists. Implications for trauma and memory development and for translational research are discussed.

After Child Maltreatment: The Importance of Voice for Youth in Foster Care.

Once social services steps in to protect children from violence and neglect in their homes, many youth become wards of the specialized juvenile or family court that assists in child protection (e.g., the dependency court). Some of these children will be ordered into foster care. Within this "dependency system," such children often feel a lack of voice. This study tests the prediction that foster youth who perceive having more opportunity for voice, even indirectly via a representative, more favorably rate the dependency system. Adolescents (n = 110), aged 17 years, involved in foster care and age-matched nonfoster youth rated "how good or bad the foster care/dependency court is for foster youth." The foster youth were also asked about their interactions with the court and with their attorney representatives. Foster and nonfoster youth did not significantly differ in dependency system ratings when considered at the overall group level. However, foster and nonfoster youth ratings significantly differed when foster youth's views of relevant prior legal experiences (e.g., frequency of child-attorney contact, quality of attorney representation) were taken into account: Youth with the highest perceived quality of experiences indicated more positive views than any other group. The importance of perceived quality of experience adds insight into mechanisms for improving adolescents' feelings of voice in the legal system.

Associations Between Family Risk Factors and Child Neglect Types in U.S. Army Communities.

Recent theory and empirical research suggest that child neglect is a heterogeneous phenomenon characterized by various types. This study examined family risk factors associated with five neglect types including failure to provide physical needs, lack of supervision, emotional neglect, moral-legal neglect, and educational neglect in 390 substantiated cases of neglect in four U.S. Army communities. Family factors associated with elevated risk of each neglect type relative to other types were identified using multivariate regression. Relatively distinct sets of family risk factors were differentially associated with the neglect types. Family mental health problems and larger family size were associated with risk of failure to provide physical needs, childcare problems and larger family size were associated with risk of supervisory neglect, and family disagreements were associated with risk of emotional neglect. None of the family factors were associated with elevated risk of moral-legal or educational neglect. Results can inform the development of indicated and relapse prevention strategies for families affected by different neglect types.

Adults' memories of childhood: true and false reports.

In 3 experiments, the authors examined factors that, according to the source-monitoring framework, might influence false memory formation and true/false memory discernment. In Experiment 1, combined effects of warning and visualization on false childhood memory formation were examined, as were individual differences in true and false childhood memories. Combining warnings and visualization led to the lowest false memory and highest true memory. Several individual difference factors (e.g., parental fearful attachment style) predicted false recall. In addition, true and false childhood memories differed (e.g., in amount of information). Experiment 2 examined relations between Deese/Roediger-McDermott task performance and false childhood memories. Deese/Roediger-McDermott performance (e.g., intrusion of unrelated words in free recall) was associated with false childhood memory, suggesting liberal response criteria in source decisions as a common underlying mechanism. Experiment 3 investigated adults' abilities to discern true and false childhood memory reports (e.g., by detecting differences in amount of information as identified in Experiment 1). Adults who were particularly successful in discerning such reports indicated reliance on event plausibility. Overall, the source-monitoring framework provided a viable explanatory framework. Implications for theory and clinical and forensic interviews are discussed.

Accounting for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptom Severity With Pre- and Posttrauma Measures: A Longitudinal Study of Older Adults.

Using data from a longitudinal study of community-dwelling older adults, we analyzed the most extensive set of known correlates of PTSD symptoms obtained from a single sample to examine the measures' independent and combined utility in accounting for PTSD symptom severity. Fifteen measures identified as PTSD risk factors in published meta-analyses and 12 theoretically and empirically supported individual difference and health-related measures were included. Individual difference measures assessed after the trauma, including insecure attachment and factors related to the current trauma memory, such as self-rated severity, event centrality, frequency of involuntary recall, and physical reactions to the memory, accounted for symptom severity better than measures of pre-trauma factors. In an analysis restricted to prospective measures assessed before the trauma, the total variance explained decreased from 56% to 16%. Results support a model of PTSD in which characteristics of the current trauma memory promote the development and maintenance of PTSD symptoms.

Maladaptive trauma appraisals mediate the relation between attachment anxiety and PTSD symptom severity.

OBJECTIVE: In a large sample of community-dwelling older adults with histories of exposure to a broad range of traumatic events, we examined the extent to which appraisals of traumatic events mediate the relations between insecure attachment styles and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom severity. METHOD: Participants completed an assessment of adult attachment, in addition to measures of PTSD symptom severity, event centrality, event severity, and ratings of the A1 PTSD diagnostic criterion for the potentially traumatic life event that bothered them most at the time of the study. RESULTS: Consistent with theoretical proposals and empirical studies indicating that individual differences in adult attachment systematically influence how individuals evaluate distressing events, individuals with higher attachment anxiety perceived their traumatic life events to be more central to their identity and more severe. Greater event centrality and event severity were each in turn related to higher PTSD symptom severity. In contrast, the relation between attachment avoidance and PTSD symptoms was not mediated by appraisals of event centrality or event severity. Furthermore, neither attachment anxiety nor attachment avoidance was related to participants' ratings of the A1 PTSD diagnostic criterion. CONCLUSION: Our findings suggest that attachment anxiety contributes to greater PTSD symptom severity through heightened perceptions of traumatic events as central to identity and severe. (PsycINFO Database Record

Scientific evidence versus outdated beliefs: A response to Brewin (2016).

We find Brewin's (2016) critiques of the narratives, power, and coherence measures in Rubin et al. (2016) without merit; his suggestions for a "revised formulation" (p. 1015) of coherence are contradicted by data readily available in the target article but ignored. We place Brewin's commentary in a historical context and show that it reiterates views of trauma memory fragmentation that are unsupported by data. We evaluate an earlier review of fragmentation of trauma memories (Brewin, 2014), which Brewin uses to support his position in the commentary. We show that it is contradicted by more comprehensive reviews and fails to include several studies that met Brewin's inclusion criteria but provided no support for his position, including 3 studies by the present authors (Rubin, 2011; Rubin, Boals, & Berntsen, 2008; Rubin, Dennis, & Beckham, 2011). In short, the commentary's position does not stand against scientific evidence; attempts to rescue it through arguments unsupported by data advance neither science nor clinical practice. (PsycINFO Database Record