Anxiety Sensitivity and Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms in Sexual Assault Survivors
Undergraduate: Sarah Carter Jessup
Faculty Advisor: Jon Abramowitz
Department: Psychology & Neuroscience
Anxiety sensitivity (AS), the fear of arousal-related physiological sensations, is a predictor of post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTS) following a traumatic event (Boffa et al., 2016; Olatunji & Fan, 2015), yet there is limited research on the relationship between AS and PTS among sexual assault survivors. Accordingly, the present study examined AS as a predictor of PTS symptoms among members of a campus community who reported experiencing a sexual trauma. A total of 54 adults completed an online battery of self-report measures of AS, general distress, and dysfunctional ¿¿¿posttraumatic¿¿¿ cognitions known to predict PTS. Three linear regressions were computed, one for each subscale of the PTSD Symptom Scale (PSS; i.e., re-experiencing, avoidance, arousal). All regression models explained significant variance in PSS scores. Posttraumatic cognitions were the only significant individual predictors of avoidance and re-experiencing, yet both AS and posttraumatic cognitions were significantly predicted arousal symptoms. Although cross-sectional, this study has potential implications for understanding the role of AS in PTS among sexual trauma survivors. In particular, AS appears to be associated only with the arousal symptom domain of PTS. Future directions and limitations of this study will be discussed.