Document Type

Article

Publication Date

8-1-2009

Publication Title

Journal of Anxiety Disorders

Abstract

Studies of civilians typically find that female gender is a risk factor for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Police and military studies often find no gender differences in PTSD. We compared 157 female police officers and 124 female civilians on several variables including trauma exposure, peritraumatic emotional distress, current somatization, and cumulative PTSD symptoms. We found that despite greater exposure to assaultive violence in the officer group, female civilians reported significantly more severe PTSD symptoms. Elevated PTSD symptoms in female civilians were explained by significantly more intense peritraumatic emotional distress among female civilians. We also found that female officers showed a stronger direct relationship between peritraumatic emotional distress and current somatization. Our findings suggest that apparent gender differences in PTSD may result from differences in peritraumatic emotionality, which influence subsequent PTSD and somatization symptoms. Emotionality may be more important than biological sex in understanding gender differences in PTSD.

Keywords

Gender, Peritraumatic distress, Police, PTSD, Somatization

Volume

23

Issue

6

First Page

767

Last Page

774

DOI

10.1016/j.janxdis.2009.02.015

ISSN

08876185

Rights

© The Author(s) 2009

Comments

Peer reviewed accepted manuscript.

Included in

Psychology Commons

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