How Do Your Relationship Experiences Affect Your Mental Health?

Background

Coercive control is a severe and insidious type of psychological intimate partner violence, and this study aims to investigate the mental health implications of coercive control with a particular focus on PTSD and complex PTSD (C-PTSD).

Research Questions / Hypotheses

Research Question 1: How does coercive control impact on the mental health of female IPV victim/survivors, particularly PTSD and C-PTSD, above and beyond other forms of IPV (i.e. physical, sexual, other psychological)?

  • Hypothesis 1. Significant additional variance in PTSD, C-PTSD and other negative mental health outcomes is explained by coercive control after controlling for other forms of IPV.
  • Hypothesis 2. Coercive control is the most important predictor of C-PTSD.

Research Question 2: Is the relationship between exposure to coercive control and PTSD/C-PTSD moderated by a negative self-concept?

  • Hypothesis: As negative self-concept increases the relationship between coercive control and PTSD/C-PTSD also increases.

Research Question 3: Is the relationship between exposure to coercive control and PTSD/C-PTSD moderated by self-compassion?

  • Hypothesis: As self-compassion increases the relationship between coercive control and PTSD/C-PTSD decreases.

Participants

55 (REP) participants completed the study. To be eligible to participate in this study participants had to identify as a woman, be at least 18 years old, live in Australia, and have experienced abuse by a current or former intimate partner and participants who did not meet this criteria were excluded from the study.

Methods

The survey was completed online via Qualtrics. The survey included demographic questions, and validated questionnaires to measure exposure to intimate partner violence, particularly coercive control and mental health outcomes, including PTSD, complex PTSD, depression and anxiety as well as of self-compassion.

Results

The data from this study has not yet been analysed and results cannot be reported at this stage, but analyses will likely include correlations, hierarchical regression and moderation analyses. Findings are expected to be in line with the hypotheses outlined above.

Implications

This study aims to investigate the mental health implications of intimate partner violence, particularly coercive control through a trauma lens to inform the development of feasible trauma-focused evidence-based psychological Interventions.