Trauma-Informed Message Effectiveness in Domestic Violence Intervention: The Moderating Roles of Trauma-driven Traits and Dual Information Processing Patterns
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Date
2021-11-23
Authors
Chansiri, Karikarn
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
Research background: Adverse childhood experiences (ACE) predict leading causes of death, yet childhood-trauma informed interventions at the mass level are sparse. This study transformed clinical trauma-informed practices to a larger scale intervention as trauma-informed messages (TIM). Domestic violence victimization among women was selected as the intervention topic due to its high prevalence and correlations with ACE. Childhood trauma-driven traits, such as anxious and avoidant attachments towards parental figures and symptoms of borderline personality disorder (BPD), were tested as moderators. A core feature of those traits is social-communicative inflexibilities, potentially impacting intervention message processing. Cognitive Experiential Self-Theory posited comorbidity between ACE and distorted information processing frameworks. Cognitive and experiential processing styles were tested as the second moderators. Method: Participants are battered women with ACE, heterosexual, aged 18-60 years old. Amazon Mechanical Turk was utilized for participant recruitment with four prescreening criteria: a) indicating at least one aspect of fear towards their current partner, b) reporting at least one ACE area, c) not having been in women shelters in the past six months, and d) not a psychiatric patient. Out of 3976 women who participated in the prescreening, only 344 met the criteria.
Data analysis: Data screening yielded 289 cases from 344 for the final analyses. Linear regression models were conducted for two-ways interactions (i.e., message conditions x trauma driven traits) and three-ways interaction (i.e., message conditions x trauma driven traits x information processing patterns). Johnson-Neyman techniques were employed to detect significant interaction regions.
Results: Relative to conventional messages, TIM predicted greater DV termination attitudes, including leaving intention, trauma knowledge, and safety-related empowerment aspects (i.e., perceived internal tools, perceived social support, and perceived tradeoffs from ending the relationship) with small to large effect sizes. The effectiveness persisted even among women with BPD symptoms and unhealthy attachment patterns, who naturally expressed impaired social information processing. TIM effectiveness, however, is less pronounced among women who scored higher on the trauma-driven traits. Considering information processing styles as a second moderator, TIM effectiveness existed among avoidant, cognitive women and anxious, experiential women with the larger effect sizes in the latter group. Implications and limitations are discussed.
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Keywords
Adverse childhood experience, Cognitive Experiential Self-Theory, Domestic violence, Information processing, Trauma-informed care, Trauma-informed communication