Gender violence, post-traumatic stress disorder and self-esteem in a sample of Mexican women

Abstract

The present study is descriptive, correlational, explanatory, and cross-sectional. It has the objective of explaining the level of influence of gender violence on the level of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and the relationship between gender violence and self-esteem. The participants in this study were 281 adult women who attended an event organized to commemorate the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and Girls. To study these variables, the following instruments were applied: Gender Violence Scale, by Valdez et al. (2006), with 20 items; the Saquinaula PTSD Scale (2019), with 16 items; and the 1965 Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale, with 10 items, adapted for the Mexican context by Jurado Cárdenas et al. (2016). The results revealed that there is a slight yet significant and negative relationship between gender violence and self-esteem. It was also found that psychological and sexual violence predict up to 32.6% of PTSD.