(PS11-B47) Examining Posttraumatic Stress, Discriminatory Stress, and Alcohol Use Among Women

Women are at a heightened risk for the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Further, rates of alcohol use and misuse are increasing among women, and this group may be especially vulnerable to alcohol-related problems. Prior literature has linked the experience of discrimination to both PTSD symptoms and alcohol use. However, there is limited empirical research focusing on the effects of discriminatory stress (i.e., trauma symptoms of discrimination) on PTSD-alcohol use relations among women. Thus, the current study examined indirect effect of PTSD symptom severity on alcohol use and motives for alcohol use through discriminatory stress. The sample was comprised of 711 trauma-exposed college women (Mage = 22.1, SD = 5.1; 40.9% Hispanic/Latina; 49.9% White, 22.5% Asian, 14.2% Black/African American, 2.4% American Indian/Alaska Native, and 9.7% Other) recruited from a university in the southern United States. The most commonly reported types of discriminatory stress were related to gender (95.7%), race/ethnicity (91.2%), age (85.5%), social class (83.8%), religion (73.3%), and disability  (48.1%). Indirect effects were calculated using 10,000 bootstrapped samples. Results revealed that discriminatory stress explained (i.e., statistically mediated) the association of PTSD symptom severity with a) alcohol use severity (B = .01, 95% CI [.003, .02]); b) coping motives for alcohol use (B = .003, 95% CI [.0003, .01]); and c) conformity motives for alcohol use (B  = .004, 95% CI [.001, .01]). Effects remained consistent after accounting for trauma load (i.e., number of traumatic event types experienced). These findings demonstrate discriminatory stress may play a key role in PTSD and alcohol use relations among college women. This line of research has the potential to inform clinical intervention strategies among this population.