Military sexual trauma: Exploring the moderating role of restrictive emotionality among male veterans

Objective: Military Sexual Trauma (MST) has been found to be positively associated with mental health outcomes, such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, depressive symptoms, symptoms of anxiety, and insomnia severity (Jenkins et al., 2015; O'Brien & Sher, 2013). Male survivors of MST face unique challenges, including concerns associated with hypermasculinity (e.g., restrictive emotionality [RE]). Men with high RE (difficulty expressing emotions) report more negative mental health outcomes compared to men with low RE (Good et al., 1995). The present study investigated whether RE moderated the relationship between MST and negative mental health outcomes, while controlling for combat exposure (CE) and age to further assess confounding variables. Method: One hundred thirty-four adult male veterans in behavioral health treatment at a large VA medical center in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States were recruited. Participants provided self-reported data on MST and symptoms of PTSD, depression, anxiety, and insomnia, as well as their endorsement of restrictive emotionality. PROCESS v3.3 (Hayes, 2017) regression analytic method was used to test main and interaction effects. Results: MST was a significant predictor of PTSD symptoms and insomnia severity-but not depressive symptoms or symptoms of anxiety. RE also moderated the relationship between MST and PTSD symptoms, depressive symptoms, and insomnia, after controlling for CE and age. Conclusion: These findings suggest that restricting emotions has a negative influence on men's mental health functioning. Therefore, assessing male veterans' experiences of expressing their emotions within the context of masculinity and their military training will likely have implications on trauma processing and treatment outcomes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Examining Stigmatizing Beliefs about PrEP Use among Black Sexual Minority Men: A Test of Explanatory Mechanisms

Stigma often is cited as a barrier to the uptake and use of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to prevent HIV among Black sexual minority men (SMM). Socialized gender norms (i.e., restrictive emotionality) are associated with experiences and manifestations of stigma in men. However, the association between restrictive emotionality and the stigma surrounding PrEP use has received little attention in previous research. The present study examines the association between restrictive emotionality and holding stigmatizing beliefs about PrEP use with a theoretically informed serial mediation model testing internalized homophobia and LGBT community connectedness as mediators among a sample of 455 Black SMM in the Southeastern US. Results indicate that restrictive emotionality is associated with stigmatizing beliefs about PrEP use. Further, internalized homophobia and LGBT community connectedness were found to partially mediate the proposed relationship serially. Internalized homophobia, but not LGBT community connectedness, also independently mediated the association between restrictive emotionality and stigmatizing beliefs of PrEP use. This study provides important insights into how aspects of masculinity influence the manifestation of stigmatizing beliefs about PrEP use among Black SMM. The present findings have implications for reducing these beliefs, which are known to negatively impact uptake and use of the HIV prevention tool among Black SMM at elevated risk for HIV.