Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

8-1999

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Counseling

Major Professor

Leonard Handler, Charles Thompson

Committee Members

Schuyler Huck, Gary Klukken

Abstract

The three studies reported upon herein explore the manifestation of posttraumatic effects as expressed on the MMPI-2 F, clinical, Posttraumatic Distress, and Dissociationscales among groups of outpatients who self-report a history of sexual or physical abuse.The first study contrasts the MMPI-2 profiles of female groups reporting physical or sexual abuse, during adult or childhood, with clinical control groups. MANOVAS resulted in significant main effects due to general trauma, adult physical abuse, childsexual abuse, child physical abuse and multiple abuse groups in comparison to clinical control groups. The follow-up univariate F-tests and post hoc Bonferroni tests revealed significant elevation of the Pd, Pa and Sc scales across all the abuse groups in comparison to the clinical control groups; with the exception of the adult physical abuse group that manifested significant elevation of the Pd and Pa, but not the Sc scale. The D, Pt and Mascales did not exhibit significant elevations among the abuse groups in comparison to the clinical control groups. In subsequent MANCOVA analyses main effects due to general trauma, child sexual, adult physical and multiple abuse were retained when a measure of family relationships, designed for this study was included as a covariate factor. In the related follow-up univariate F or post hoc Bonferroni tests only the Pa scale retained significant effects, independent of the family covariate effects for the general trauma,adult physical and multiple abuse groups. In MANOVA comparisons of female clients reporting emotional abuse only, assault abuse only, or both emotional and assault abusewith non-abused clinical control groups, significant main effects due to abuse were observed, with significant elevation of the Pd, Pa and So scales exhibited solely by the group reporting both emotional abuse and assault. The group reporting assault only exhibited significant elevation of the Pa scale only. In codetype analyses the abuse groups were distinguished by 4-8/8-4, while the non-abused control group was described by a 2-7/7-2 codetype. In the second study, MANOVAS of the clinical scales resulted insignificant main effects due to general trauma, and child physical abuse, but not childsexual abuse, in comparison to clinical control groups, among male outpatients. The Follow-up univariate F or Kruskal Wallis tests revealed significant elevation of the Pd, Paand Sc scales for both the general trauma and child physical abuse group in comparison to the clinical control groups, as well as significant elevations of Hs and Hy. The male child physical abuse group also exhibited significant elevations of the D, Pt and Mascales relative to the clinical control group. In MANCOVA analyses neither the main effects due to trauma or child physical abuse were retained when the family measure was run as a covariate. In MANOVA comparisons of male clients reporting assault only or emotional abuse in addition to assault abuse with non-abused clinical control groups,significant main effects were observed; and only the group reporting both emotional and assault abuse exhibited significant elevation of all three Pd, Pa and Sc scales, in addition to significant elevation of the Hs, D, Hy and Pt scales. The male abused groups were distinguished by various combinations of 4-7/7-4 and 4-8/8-4 code types; while the nonabused clinical control were described by a nearly within normal bounds 4-7/7-4 codetype (mean scale scores > 68). Multiple regression equations, incorporating the additional variables of extent of abuse, perpetrator identity, and observation of parental marital violence, that predicted variance in MMPI-2 clinical scales for males, and family measure ratings for females are also described in the first two studies. In the third study,comparisons of ANOVA tests for the F, Posttraumatic, North Carolina DissociationIndex (NCDI), Phillips Dissociation Scale (PDS), and clinical scales between combined or single-sex abuse groups and clinical controls, revealed that the Pd, Pa and Scales more reliably distinguished abused groups than did the other scales. Both the PDSand NCDI distinguished the combined-sex general trauma, child physical and multipleabuse groups; only the PDS distinguished the adult sexual assault combined-sex group.The PDS distinguished the female general trauma and adult sexual abuse groups; the NCDI and PDS both distinguished the male child physical abuse group and the NDCIdistinguished the male general trauma group also. Across all three studies the Pd, Pa andSc scales most reliably distinguished sexually and physically abused female and male outpatients from clinical controls. Neither the NCDI nor PDS dissociation scale appeared to reliably distinguish either child or multiple abuse groups.

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