PTSS and Emotion Regulation in a female forensic population v1.1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A preliminary investigation of the relationship between Post traumatic Stress symptoms(PTSS)and emotion regulation in a female forensic inpatient population.
IRAS ID
153577
Contact name
N Hunt
Contact email
Research summary
What is the relationship between emotion regulation and Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms (PTSS) in a low secure female forensic population?
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is often under diagnosed in psychiatric settings but when it is it is as common as depression but generally requires twice the length of care. Prevalence is higher in women than in men and is linked to offending behaviour, substance misuse, self-harm and suicide attempts. The way traumatic events are emotionally processed effects whether PTSD develops, the severity of symptoms and maintenance of them. The development of emotion regulation is impacted on by early trauma, which in turn is linked to subsequent development of psychiatric disorders later in life.
Method
The Multi-Disciplinary Team will be asked to identify any patients not suitable to take part for clinical or capacity reasons. All other patients will be invited to take part in voluntary research by completing the survey. The measures in the survey will be the PTSD checklist (PCL 5) with Criterion A questions, a negative affect measure (PANAS) and the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), 74 items in total.
A comparison group of 18-65 year old females will be recruited via social media and will complete the same survey on the Bristol Online Survey site. Completion and subsequent return of questionnaires will be taken as informed consent and separate written informed consent will not be sought.
Analysis will explore the relationships between the different factors and investigate any differences between the clinical and general population samples.Findings will help inform clinical practice about the prevalence of PTSD in this population, the relationships between trauma and emotion regulation difficulties, and any implications for treatment.
REC name
East Midlands - Nottingham 2 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/EM/1009
Date of REC Opinion
17 Jul 2014
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion