Witnessing Versus Experiencing Direct Violence in Childhood as Correlates of Adulthood PTSD

Abstract

Research has established that childhood violence exposure plays a considerable role in the development of deleterious outcomes in childhood and adulthood. However, important gaps remain in understanding the complex relationships between early violence exposure, adulthood trauma exposure, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This study investigates whether two specific types of childhood violence exposure (witnessing domestic violence and experiencing child abuse) are uniquely associated with PTSD while controlling for additional trauma experience. In a community sample of pregnant women, this study finds that childhood abuse only and combined exposure to abuse and witnessing abuse correlated to current and lifetime PTSD diagnoses, but witnessing alone did not. In addition, adult nonviolence trauma histories account for more variance in PTSD than did any early violence exposure type.

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