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13 J. Fam. Violence 1 (1998)

handle is hein.journals/jfamv13 and id is 1 raw text is: Joumal of Family Violence, Vol. 13, No. 1, 1998 Group 'Treatment for Spouse Abuse: Are Women with PTSD Appropriate Participants? Karin A. Schlee,' Richard E. Heyman,2 and K. Daniel O'Leary' Eighty four abused women seeking therapy with their husbands were accepted into a group treatment program for spouse abuse. In the current study, we evaluated the treatment outcome of those women (n = 27) diagnosed with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). PTSD diagnosis, itself, did not differentiate those women who dropped out of treatment. Results indicated, however, that across all women, avoidance symptomatology significantly differentiated treatment completers from dropouts. Although women with PTSD began treatment in worse condition (lower marital satisfaction, higher depressive symptomatology, greater fear of spouse), post-assessment revealed they achieved positive treatment gains parallel to those of women without PTSD. Women with PTSD improved on each outcome variable measured, including a reduction in fear of spouse. Women with PTSD also did not differentially drop out of either treatment condition (men's/women's versus conjoint groups) which lends support to the appropriateness of conjoint treatment for spouse abuse. KEY WORDS: PTSD; wife abuse; treatment outcome; domestic violence. INTRODUCTION The majority of early research on the psychological effects of domes- tic violence on abused women was of a descriptive and qualitative nature (Martin, 1976; Walker, 1979; Walker, 1984). Researchers are only begin- ning to conduct systematic and quantitative analyses in this area (Cascardi et al., 1995; Houskamp and Foy, 1991; Kemp et al., 1991; Saunders, 1994). IState University of New York at Stony Brook, New York 11794. 2To whom correspondence should be addressed at the Department of Psychology, State University of New York, Stony Brook, New York, 11794-2500. 1 0885-7482/98/0300-0001$15.00/0 © 1998 Plenum Publishing Corporation

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