Systematic search of Bayesian statistics in the field of psychotraumatology

Influence of Betrayal Trauma on Schizoid Personality Pathology

Schizoid personality pathology is among the most debilitating and enigmatic forms of personality pathology. Some have suggested that a potential etiological influence on schizoid pathology is trauma. Thus far, research on the association between trauma and schizoid pathology has focused primarily on type of trauma (e.g., abuse vs. neglect during childhood) rather than who perpetrated the trauma. This contrasts with recent research on trauma perpetrated by someone upon whom the survivor relies and/or trusts (i.e. betrayal trauma), which many studies show has a uniquely pernicious association with several forms of personality pathology. However, this has not yet been examined with respect to schizoid pathology specifically. In this study, we examined the relative associations between trauma varying degrees of betrayal and schizoid personality pathology in a sample recruited from Amazon's Mechanical Turk (N = 300) using a Bayesian approach to structural equation modeling. Results suggest that interpersonal trauma in general was associated with higher levels of schizoid pathology. Findings further indicate that for men but not women, trauma with a high degree of betrayal was uniquely associated with schizoid pathology. These findings contribute to the growing body of research suggesting the influence of interpersonal trauma in general and betrayal trauma in particular on personality pathology and have implications for future research on and intervention with people with high levels of schizoid pathology.

Relative Effects of Sexual Assault and Temperament Traits on Cognitive Characteristics of Histrionic Personality Disorder

Histrionic personality disorder (HPD) is a common and problematic form of personality pathology involving excessive attention-seeking, often through overly sexualized means. Much of the research on HPD has involved the association between HPD characteristics and basic temperament traits. Given the sometimes hypersexualized presentation of HPD, another potential influence on HPD characteristics may be exposure to sexual assault. However, there is little research on the association between sexual assault and HPD in general or with respect to temperament traits in particular. In this study, we examine the relative associations of sexual assault and temperament traits with the cognitive characteristics of HPD in a large sample of college students (N = 965) using a Bayesian approach to the analysis of covariance. Results suggest that sexual assault is associated with HPD cognitive characteristics over and above the robust influence of temperament traits. The study findings have implications for future research on and clinical intervention with people with HPD.

Influence of Child Abuse and Neglect on Histrionic Personality Pathology

Histrionic personality pathology is among the most common forms of personality pathology, although little is known about its potential risk factors. One possible factor that may influence histrionic personality pathology is childhood trauma, most notably sexual abuse and physical/emotional neglect. However, there is little research on how these and other forms of childhood trauma may influence histrionic personality pathology relative to each other. To address this, in this study we examined the relative effects of different forms of child abuse and neglect on histrionic personality pathology in a sample of women and men from Amazon's Mechanical Turk (N = 399) using a Bayesian approach to structural equation modeling. Results suggest that child sexual abuse is the strongest predictor of histrionic personality pathology in adulthood. However, this differs between women and men such that physical neglect also predicts histrionic personality pathology for women, whereas physical and emotional abuse as well as emotional neglect predict histrionic personality pathology for men. These findings provide insight into the developmental precursors to histrionic personality pathology and have implications for research on and clinical intervention with people exhibiting histrionic personality pathology.

Longitudinal Association Between Intimate Partner Violence and Alcohol Use in a Population Cohort of South African Women

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a common traumatic stressor for women worldwide, especially for women living in low-and-middle-income countries. One of the most common correlates of IPV victimization is alcohol use, but the dynamics of IPV and drinking among women are not well understood. Although some research suggests that women drink in the aftermath of IPV to cope with distress related to the violence they experienced, other studies imply that higher levels of alcohol use among one or both partners in a relationship make violence more likely. In this study, we examine this question in a secondary analysis of a longitudinal study of a population cohort of pregnant women in South Africa (N = 1238) using a Bayesian approach to latent growth curve structural equation modeling. Results indicate that on average, IPV decreases and alcohol use increases over time and that these trajectories are associated with each other. Further, results suggest that although IPV drives drinking (rather than the other way around), higher average levels of alcohol use are associated with a slower decrease in IPV. Findings have implications for future research on the association between IPV and alcohol use, as well as for clinical intervention for women who experienced IPV.

Incremental Influence of Betrayal Trauma and Personality Traits on PTSD Symptoms

Symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are common reactions to trauma. One factor that influences the manifestation of PTSD symptoms is the type of trauma experienced. Traumas perpetrated by someone on whom the trauma survivor trusts and relies on for support (i.e., betrayal traumas) are especially predictive of PTSD symptoms. However, the degree to which this is true differs somewhat across men and women. Another factor that influences PTSD symptoms is personality, which is most often operationalized in terms of discrete personality traits. Among these traits, Neuroticism (the tendency to experience negative affect) is linked to a wide range of psychological dysfunction in general and to PTSD symptoms in particular. However, there is little research on how trauma type and personality differentially influence PTSD symptoms. To address this gap, in this study we examined the incremental effects of traumas with varying degrees of betrayal and personality traits on PTSD symptoms in a sample of college students (N = 276) using a Bayesian approach to multiple regression. Results suggest that Neuroticism and trauma at all levels of betrayal were associated with higher levels of PTSD symptoms, although this differed across sex. These results are consistent with previous research that identifies Neuroticism as a risk factor for a wide range of mental health problems and clarifies earlier findings on betrayal trauma.

Influence of Personality Traits on Post-Traumatic Cognitions of Sexual Assault

Sexual assault is a common form of trauma that is associated with psychological distress for many people who experience it. One factor that influences the degree to which sexual assault survivors exhibit distress is the cognitions they form related to the assault in its aftermath. The more times the assault happens, the more disruptive are the post-traumatic cognitions, although both the frequency of sexual assault and nature of post-traumatic cognitions differ by gender. Another factor that may influence post-traumatic cognitions is personality, which emerging research suggests has an influence on post-traumatic response in general and post-traumatic cognitions in particular. However, there is little research on the influence of personality on post-traumatic cognitions related to sexual assault specifically. In this study, we examine the association between personality traits (Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Openness) and post-traumatic cognitions of sexual assault in a sample of sexual assault survivors recruited from Amazon's Mechanical Turk (N = 303) using a Bayesian approach to multiple regression. Results suggest that although the influence of traits varied depending on the post-traumatic cognition under analysis and the sex of the sexual assault survivor, Neuroticism was the primary predictor of post-traumatic cognitions over and above sexual assault frequency, although this applied more for men than for women. Study findings clarify previous research on the role of personality traits in post-traumatic response and suggest directions for future research and clinical intervention.

To share or not to share - 10 years of European Journal of Psychotraumatology

The European Journal of Psychotraumatology, owned by the European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ESTSS), launched as one of the first full Open Access 'specialist' journals in its field. Has this Open Access model worked in how the Journal has performed? With the European Journal of Psychotraumatology celebrating its ten-year anniversary we look back at the past decade of sharing our research with the world and with how the journal sits with the broader movement beyond Open Access to Open Research and we present new policies we have adopted to move the field of psychotraumatology to the next level of Open Research. While we as researchers now make our publications more often freely available to all, how often do we share our protocols, our statistical analysis plans, or our data? We all gain from more transparency and reproducibility, and big steps are being made in this direction. The journal's decennial performance as well as the exciting new Open Research developments are presented in this editorial. The journal is no longer in its infancy and eager to step into the next decade of Open Research.

Influence of personality traits on college women's appraisals of intimate partner violence

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a common traumatic stressor for young adult women and results in a number of problems for those who experience it. The appraisals women make of IPV influence the degree of distress they experience in the aftermath of IPV. Research suggests that personality traits may influence IPV appraisals, although there are relatively few studies of this. In this study, we examine the association between Five Factor Model personality traits (i.e., Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Openness) and appraisals of IPV in a sample of young adult women in college who experienced IPV (N = 241) using a Bayesian approach to multiple regression. Results suggest that Agreeableness, Extraversion, and Neuroticism predicted different styles of appraisals over and above the effect of IPV severity. Study findings clarify previous research on the role of personality traits in the response to IPV and suggest directions for future research.

A decennial review of psychotraumatology: what did we learn and where are we going?

On 6 December 2019 we start the 10th year of the European Journal of Psychotraumatogy (EJPT), a full Open Access journal on psychotrauma. This editorial is part of a special issue/collection celebrating the 10 years anniversary of the journal where we will acknowledge some of our most impactful articles of the past decade (also discussed below and marked with * in the reference list). In this editorial the editors present a decennial review of the field addressing a range of topics that are core to both the journal and to psychotraumatology as a discipline. These include neurobiological developments (genomics, neuroimaging and neuroendocrine research), forms of trauma exposure and impact across the lifespan, mass trauma and early interventions, work-related trauma, trauma in refugee populations, and the potential consequences of trauma such as PTSD or Complex PTSD, but also resilience. We address innovations in psychological, medication (enhanced) and technology-assisted treatments, mediators and moderators like social support and finally how new research methods help us to gain insights in symptom structures or to better predict symptom development or treatment success. We aimed to answer three questions 1. Where did we stand in 2010? 2. What did we learn in the past 10 years? 3. What are our knowledge gaps? We conclude with a number of recommendations concerning top priorities for the future direction of the field of psychotraumatology and correspondingly the journal.

Bayesian PTSD-Trajectory Analysis with Informed Priors Based on a Systematic Literature Search and Expert Elicitation

There is a recent increase in interest of Bayesian analysis. However, little effort has been made thus far to directly incorporate background knowledge via the prior distribution into the analyses. This process might be especially useful in the context of latent growth mixture modeling when one or more of the latent groups are expected to be relatively small due to what we refer to as limited data. We argue that the use of Bayesian statistics has great advantages in limited data situations, but only if background knowledge can be incorporated into the analysis via prior distributions. We highlight these advantages through a data set including patients with burn injuries and analyze trajectories of posttraumatic stress symptoms using the Bayesian framework following the steps of the WAMBS-checklist. In the included example, we illustrate how to obtain background information using previous literature based on a systematic literature search and by using expert knowledge. Finally, we show how to translate this knowledge into prior distributions and we illustrate the importance of conducting a prior sensitivity analysis. Although our example is from the trauma field, the techniques we illustrate can be applied to any field.

Psychotraumatology on the move

Psychotraumatology is on the move. Worldwide, there is an increasing awareness of the negative impact of psychotrauma, which is reflected in the number of publications on the topic. These publications become more and more available to the public (Open Access), even more so than in other fields, and thus lead to quicker implementation of research findings. In this editorial, the editor of the European Journal of Psychotraumatology (EJPT) provides a brief review of how the journal has been doing, including recent accomplishments, some metrics and the ESTSS EJPT award for best paper of 2017, and identifies a number of priorities for the next year.

PTSD symptomics: network analyses in the field of psychotraumatology

Recent years have seen increasing attention on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) research. While research has largely focused on the dichotomy between patients diagnosed with mental disorders and healthy controls - in other words, investigations at the level of diagnoses - recent work has focused on psychopathology symptoms. Symptomics research in the area of PTSD has been scarce so far, although several studies have focused on investigating the network structures of PTSD symptoms. The present special issue of EJPT adds to the literature by curating additional PTSD network studies, each looking at a different aspect of PTSD. We hope that this special issue encourages researchers to conceptualize and model PTSD data from a network perspective, which arguably has the potential to inform and improve the efficacy of therapeutic interventions.