| dc.description.abstract | Background: The most effective treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are the ones that focus on the patient’s memory for the traumatic event. However, many patients cannot tolerate the aversive experience associated with these therapies and therefore fail to benefit from it. There is accumulating evidence from research on laboratory stress and pain research that social support reduces the emotional impact of aversive experiences. No research has yet been conducted on the effect of social support during the treatment of PTSD. Aims: The purpose of this experimental study was to examine the effect of social support provided by spouses on subjective emotional stress responses during exposure to aversive stimuli in PTSD patients. Furthermore, it was investigated whether the effect of social support was related to a) patients’ perceptions of the quality of the marital relationship and b) an aspect of patients’ attachment style. Methods: Using a within-subject counterbalanced repeated measures design, fourteen PTSD patients who were treated at Foundation Centrum ’45 (the Netherlands) looked at aversive images: once in the presence of their spouse (experimental condition) and once without the spouse (control condition). We assessed the experienced arousal and valence immediately before (pretest) and immediately after (posttest) viewing the image, using the self-assessment manikin (SAM) scales. After viewing the image, we assessed the experienced arousal and valence of the recollection of the image. A 2-item measure was used to assess participants’ perception of marital quality. The “depend” subscale of the Revised Adult Attachment Scale (RAAS) was used to measure an aspect of participants’ attachment style. Results: Relative to the control condition, the experimental condition showed a statistically significant pre-posttest decline on valence and a marginally significant pre-posttest decline on arousal. With regard to the recollection of the image, we found that arousal scores significantly decreased over time. Neither marital quality nor an aspect of attachment seemed to be related to the effect of social support. Conclusion: This study shows that social support has an attenuating effect on subjective emotional stress responses in PTSD patients during exposure to aversive stimuli. Although more research is needed, our results suggest that PTSD patients may be able to benefit from social support during stressful psychological interventions. Clinical implications and recommendations for further research are discussed. | |
