Violence, PTSD Symptoms & Substance Use

(This research was funded by National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse R03 DA17668 to Dr. Sullivan)

The broad, long-term objective of this research was to develop a knowledge base to influence practice and policy for the prevention and treatment of substance use among women who experience posttraumatic stress symptomatology related to intimate partner violence (IPV). An initial objective of this project was to document, in a community sample of women, the comorbidity of substance use disorders and PTSD resulting from IPV. A second objective was to test a series of hypotheses that examined the relationships of selected risk and protective factors to posttraumatic stress symptomatology related to IPV and substance use. A third objective was to explore the extent to which DSM-IV IPV-PTSD symptom clusters differentially predicted substance use, and how these relationships were mediated by risk and protective factors.