| Homeless youths have been found to be at particularly high risk for developing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) due to their frequent experience of stress and trauma both within and outside of their family homes, as well as inconsistent access to supportive services and behavioral health care. In order to gain a better understanding of risk and protective factors for PTSD in this population, PTSD symptomatology and predictors of PTSD symptomatology were examined and evaluated in a sample of young adults experiencing homelessness (N = 59) in a large Midwestern city. The results supported the first primary hypothesis, which predicted that higher rates of exposure to abuse would be associated with more PTSD symptoms, higher symptom severity, and more frequent PTSD diagnosis (rs = 0.32 - 0.47, all ps < .01). In general, results did not support the second primary hypothesis, which predicted that higher rates of exposure to community violence would be associated with more PTSD symptoms, higher symptom severity scores, and more frequent PTSD diagnosis (rs = 0.03 - 0.20, all ps > .05). Results also did not support the third hypothesis, which predicted that higher total hardiness scores would be associated with lower numbers of PTSD symptoms, lower symptom severity, and not meeting diagnostic criteria for PTSD (rs = -0.20 to -0.04, all ps > .05). Although all correlations between exposure to violence, hardiness, and PTSD symptom levels and diagnosis were in the expected direction, none of these correlations were statistically significant. For regression analyses combining abuse variables as predictors of PTSD symptomatology, sexual abuse contributed significant unique variance to prediction of number of PTSD symptoms (p < .01) and both physical and sexual abuse contributed significant unique variance to prediction of PTSD symptom severity (both ps < .05). For regression analyses combining violence exposure variables as predictors of PTSD symptomatology and combining hardiness variables as predictors of PTSD symptomatology, none of the variables contributed significant unique variance to prediction of PTSD symptomatology (all ps > .05). Clinical implications and study strengths and limitations are discussed. |
