Complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) is a diagnosis defined by the World Health Organization that differs from classic post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). CPTSD is a set of symptoms (re-experiencing, avoidance, current sense of threat, affective dysregulation, negative self-concept and alterations in relationships) that can appear after the experience of traumatic events, especially of an interpersonal nature, chronic and difficult to escape, having a high impact on different areas of the daily life of the people who suffer from it.
This, in a previous study carried out by CIMCYC researchers, pioneers at the world level, in the population of women survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV), an alarming prevalence of CPTSD was observed.
In terms of risk factors, the severity of violence may facilitate the onset or increase the severity of CPTSD symptoms. In contrast, resilience, understood as an individual's ability to adapt or change successfully in the face of adversity or trauma, is a protective factor against mental disorders and mitigates risk against traumatic stress. In relation to CPTSD and in the case of women survivors of IPV, low levels of resilience have been found to be related to the presence of three of the six symptoms of CPTSD (affective dysregulation, negative self-concept and alterations in relationships). At the same time, several studies have found that chronic exposure to violence or exposure to severe violence could erode resilience.
Thus, while interpersonal violence has been shown to be negatively associated with resilience, and resilience, in turn, is inversely related to the severity of CPTSD symptoms, the relationships between these variables have not yet been examined together. Therefore, the present study, conducted jointly by researchers from four countries and experts on CPTSD and IPV, attempts to fill this research gap by exploring the possible mediating role of resilience between the severity of experienced IPV and the severity of subsequent CPTSD symptoms in IPV women survivors.
Our study involved 202 women survivors of IPV from 30 locations in six different regions of Spain. Our results showed that the severity of IPV, whether physical, sexual or psychological violence, together or in isolation, can provoke symptoms of CPTSD in women survivors. In turn, lower levels of resilience were associated with higher levels of CPTSD symptoms. Regarding the role of resilience, we found that resilience does not mediate the relationship between severity of violence and severity of CPTSD. Therefore, it would not have a mediating role, but rather a direct protective role against the development of subsequent CPTSD symptoms. Therefore, we consider that future studies should explore other mediating or moderating variables in the relationship between IPV severity and resilience, and investigate the role of resilience-focused treatments in mitigating the severity of CPTSD symptoms so prevalent in this population.
Reference
Fernández-Fillol, C., Hidalgo-Ruzzante, N., Perez-Garcia, M., Hyland, P., Shevlin, M., & Karatzias, T. (2024). The role of resilience in the relationship between intimate partner violence severity and ICD-11 CPTSD severity. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 15(1), 2285671. https://doi.org/10.1080/20008066.2023.2285671