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One
out of every six women in the U.S. have experienced an attempted or completed
rape at some time in their lives and approximately 50% of female sexual
assault victims meet criteria for PTSD three months post-assault and continue
to have PTSD 9 months post-assault. Researchers have found that prior
trauma exposure, specifically sexual assault, leads to an increase in health
care visits and health problems. One possible mechanism for the relationship
between PTSD and increased health care utilization could be immune dysregulation.
A goal of this study is to examine immune functioning in women who have
recently been sexually assaulted to see if immune dysregulation correlates
with PTSD symptom severity. Aims are to determine the feasibility
of recruiting female sexual assault victims from the hospital Emergency
Department, to examine the acute stress reaction of rape as demonstrated
by dissociative, PTSD symptoms and immune functioning, and to see if sexual
assault victims with PTSD at the last time point show suppressed immune
function, compared to those who do not have PTSD. Thirty-six female
sexual assault victims will be recruited from two local hospital Emergency
Departments. They will be assessed within the first month after the
rape on psychological and immune functioning, and will be followed up 2
months and 4 months post-assault. The correlation between PTSD severity
and immune functioning at each assessment will be conducted. TO determine
whether sexual assault victims who continue to have PTSD 4 months later
exhibit suppressed immune functioning compared to those who do not have
PTSD, a repeated measures ANOVA will be done to test the relationship between
PTSD status at Time 3 and immune functioning by time.
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