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Many forms of victimization, including bullying and property crime, are increasingly moving online, but most studies of poly-victimization still primarily focus on in-person crime and violence. Few studies have examined the importance of incorporating technology-based victimizations for assessing the true burden of violence. The purpose of this study is to explore whether digital poly-victimization contributes to post-traumatic stress and anxiety/dysphoria symptoms after controlling for in-person poly-victimization. Given that technology use and technology-based victimization are changing rapidly, a mixed methods approach was adopted. In the first two phases, focus groups and cognitive interviews (89 total participants) were used to identify the range of digital victimization and develop the Digital Poly-Victimization Scale. In the third phase, the new measure was included in a community survey (n = 478, 57.5% female; 62.6% earning under $50,000 per year) in a rural Southern region, along with measures of in-person poly-victimization, posttraumatic stress and anxiety/dysphoria symptoms, and other outcomes and personal characteristics. A comprehensive measure of digital poly-victimization indicated that almost 3 in 4 participants (72.3%) had experienced at least one form of digital victimization. The results indicated that digital poly-victimization contributed unique variance to post-traumatic stress and anxiety/dysphoria symptoms (p < .001), health-related quality of life (p < .01), and subjective and family well-being (both p < .001), even after controlling for demographics and in-person poly-victimization. Digital victimization often presents fewer risks to perpetrators and can be expected to represent an increasing share of the societal burden of violence. Future research on poly-victimization should pay more attention to the role of digital victimization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has identified numerous negative sequelae of child maltreatment that may adversely impact academic functioning (AF). There is limited research, however, on the relationship between specific trauma symptoms, such as dissociation, and poor AF. This cross-sectional study examined the association between dissociative symptoms and multi-informant reports of AF in a sample of maltreated youth with a history of out-of-home care. Participants included 149 youth and their caregivers and teachers. Dissociative symptoms were measured based on youth report, whereas AF was assessed using (a) standardized measures of academic achievement, (b) youth-report measures of school membership and perceived academic competence, (c) caregiver reports of youths' performance in school, and (d) teacher reports of student grades. Results of multiple regression analyses suggested that dissociative symptoms were generally related to poorer AF after IQ, age, gender, and the total number of school and caregiver transitions were controlled. Implications for school personnel are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined posttraumatic stress symptoms and the memory retrieval process in 2 groups of adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse: 29 participants who reported having memories of their abuse prior to entering therapy (PM) and 13 who reported no memories of abuse prior to therapy (NPM). Participants were asked to indicate on checklists symptoms of constriction, hyperarousal, and intrusion experienced (a) prior to entering therapy and (b) during the surfacing of a memory while in therapy. Overall, the findings indicate that for both groups the same cluster of posttraumatic stress symptoms occurred prior to therapy and during therapy and that there was a continuity of symptoms over time. Participants were also asked to fully describe details of their traumatic memories as these details emerged prior to and/or during therapy. We determined that (a) there were striking similarities in the detailed recall of trauma memories for both groups; (b) memories of abuse emerged in substantial perceptual, somatic, and emotional detail over time before developing into a narrative; (c) the amount of detail remembered increased in the PM group during therapy; (d) members of the NPM group were more kinesthetic than visual in their orientation to the world and may not have had access to the visual information that would associate their symptoms to their abuse; and (e) triggers of traumatic memories were largely the result of internal rather than external stimuli, and these triggers happened primarily outside of therapy sessions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]