Abstract
Traumatic event exposure has been associated with negative psychological outcomes. There is, however, a dearth of research on revictimization. The current study examined patterns of lifetime interpersonal victimization based on six types of childhood maltreatment, physical and sexual assault, and assault with a weapon during adulthood via latent class analysis (LCA), with gender as covariate. Using a three-step approach, we assessed differences across the latent classes in symptoms and diagnosis of depression, anxiety, and DSM-5 posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A trauma-exposed adult sample representative of the United Kingdom population (N = 1,051) was recruited online through a research panel. The mean participant age 47.18 years (SD = 15.00, range: 18-90 years; 68.4% female). The LCA identified five classes: lifetime polyvictimization (8.3%; 69.5% female), sexual revictimization (13.7%; 96.5% female), physical revictimization (12.5%; 1.5% male), childhood trauma (25.9%; 85.6% female), and limited victimization (39.7%; 40.3% female). Compared to the other classes, the polyvictimization class, followed by the childhood trauma class, demonstrated the highest scores on anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress symptoms. The polyvictimization class had nearly a nine- to 33-fold increase in risk of depression, OR = 9.48, 95% CI [3.34, 26.87]; anxiety, OR = 12.10, 95% CI [5.36, 27.36]; and PTSD diagnoses, OR = 33.63, 95% CI [16.35, 69.43], compared to the limited victimization class. The findings facilitate the identification of individuals at risk for revictimization and indicate that evidence-based clinical interventions should be targeted toward those with exposure to revictimization and childhood trauma exposure to alleviate mental health challenges.
Highlights
Additional research has demonstrated that exposure to multiple types of childhood maltreatment increases the risk for revictimization during adulthood (Charak et al, 2019a; Classen, Palesh, & Aggarwal, 2005; Widom, Czaja, & Dutton, 2008)
Younger age and higher levels of childhood and adult trauma exposure were all significantly associated with an increased risk of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, and depression
Simulation studies suggest that the Bayesian information criterion (BIC) is the best indicator of goodness-of-fit, signifying that Model 5 had the best fit for the data in the current study (Nylund et al, 2007)
Summary
Additional research has demonstrated that exposure to multiple types of childhood maltreatment increases the risk for revictimization during adulthood (Charak et al, 2019a; Classen, Palesh, & Aggarwal, 2005; Widom, Czaja, & Dutton, 2008). LCA is of further applicability given that additional studies have indicated differences in the distribution of men and women across latent classes of childhood maltreatment and trauma exposure (Ballard et al, 2015; Charak et al, 2018), with the results of some national surveys suggesting differences in prevalence of interpersonal victimization among men and women (Black et al, 2010). Most of the study samples were limited to women except for a study by Houston et al (2011), in which four latent classes based on lifetime traumatic experiences were identified in a nationally representative sample of adults from the United States; these classes were categorized as high risk, exposure to nonsexual adult interpersonal/noninterpersonal trauma, intermediate risk/sexual abuse, and low risk. Drawing from the psychological vulnerability hypothesis of the traumagenic dynamics model and in accordance with the cumulative trauma framework, we hypothesized that participants with membership in the latent classes characterized by revictimization experiences would score higher on measures related to symptoms of depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress as compared to those in other classes characterized by victimization experiences that occurred during a single developmental phase or minimal victimization across the lifespan
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