Disgusted by Sexual Abuse: Exploring the Association Between Disgust Sensitivity and Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms Among Mothers of Sexually Abused Children

Abstract

Nonoffending mothers of sexually abused children often exhibit high levels of posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptoms. Emerging evidence suggests that trait-like individual differences in sensitivity to disgust play a role in the development of PTS symptoms. One such individual difference, disgust sensitivity, has not been examined as far as we are aware among victims of secondary traumatic stress. The current study examined associations between disgust sensitivity and PTS symptoms among mothers of sexually abused children (N = 72). Mothers completed the Impact of Event Scale-Revised and the Three Domain Disgust Scale (Tybur, Lieberman, & Griskevicius, 2009). More than one third of mothers scored above a suggested cutoff (mean score = 1.5) for high levels of PTS symptoms. Hierarchical linear regression analysis results indicated that sexual disgust sensitivity (β = .39, p = .002) was associated with PTS symptoms (R(2) = .18). An interaction analysis showed that sexual disgust sensitivity was associated with maternal PTS symptoms only when the perpetrator was not biologically related to the child (β = -.32, p = .047; R(2) = .28). Our findings suggested that sexual disgust sensitivity may be a risk factor for developing PTS symptoms among mothers of sexually abused children.

Disgust Theory Through the Lens of Psychiatric Medicine

“…It is necessary for future work to examine the selectivity of the disgust-PTSD relationship to support this assertion. At present, very few studies have examined the differences in disgust domains for people with PTSD, and only one study specifically deals with PTSD stemming from sexual trauma (van Delft et al, 2016); even then, the trauma was vicarious (symptoms in nonoffending mothers of sexually abused children). Notably, this last study found a positive association between sexual disgust and PTSD symptoms.…”

“…Whereas Engelhard et al (2011) found no correlation among any of the subscales of the Disgust Scale–Revised and PTSD symptoms, Arocho (2015) found a positive relationship between core disgust and PTSD symptoms. Findings for the TDDS are also contradictory: Pathogen disgust either has no relationship to PTSD (R. Ojserkis, personal communication, February 15, 2018; van Delft, Finkenauer, Tybur, & Lamers-Winkelman, 2016) or a positive relationship (Arocho, 2015), sexual disgust has either no relationship or a positive relationship to PTSD (R. Ojserkis, personal communication, 2017, and van Delft et al, 2016, respectively), and moral disgust either does not correlate or has a negative relationship with PTSD symptoms (Arocho, 2015; Ojserkis et al, 2014; van Delft et al, 2016).…”

Linking disgust and misophonia: The role of mental contamination

“…Archives of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, 2023; 4: [39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50] Disgust is a basic emotion characterized by the feeling of repulsion or intense disapproval of an object, person or event considered unclean, unpleasant or offensive. Disgust can be elicited by something perceived through the sense of sight, smell, taste, or touch, or vividly imagined [6].…”

“God, why?”: The Experience of Mothers from the Israeli Ultra-Orthodox Sector after their Child’s Disclosure of Sexual Abuse

“…Most have been conducted in Western societies and concentrated on identifying the prevalence of mothers' beliefs, the support provided in the aftermath of the disclosure, and the factors that facilitated this support (for example, Coohey & O'Leary, 2008;Cyr et al, 2003Cyr et al, , 2014. Qualitative and quantitative studies conducted in South Africa (Masilo & Davhana-Maselesele, 2016) and the Netherlands (van Delft et al, 2016) have focused on mothers' PTS symptoms in response to the disclosure. In addition, most studies on mothers' responses and internal experiences have dealt primarily with the general population rather than minority groups (Haboush & Alyan, 2013;Sawrikar & Katz, 2017a), and on small sample sizes.…”

“…Studies have reported that American, Dutch, and Canadian mothers of child victims of sexual abuse experienced heightened levels of depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms (Lewin & Bergin, 2001; Rakow et al, 2011; van Delft et al, 2016) and exhibited fewer maternal attachment behaviors (Lewin & Bergin, 2001). These reactions have been shown to impair mothers’ self-efficacy and parental perception (Johnson et al, 2014), and the natural mother–child bond, thus inevitably influencing how mothers cope and support their children (McCarthy et al, 2019; Rakow et al, 2011).…”