The great midwestern flood of 1993 has been a protracted stressor which is likely to affect important social systems, such as marital and family units, which must collectively cope with the aftermath of disaster. This is particularly true in the case of families forced to evacuate their homes and live in temporary quarters for an extended period of time. The impact of disaster on marital and family systems can be gleaned only indirectly from a few available studies and from anecdotal or media accounts of increased violence following disasters. Macro level indicators of social distress were reported to increase following the Mt. St. Helen's Ashfall (Adams & Adams, 1984). Of the eight indices of aggression studied, police reports of domestic violence increased the most over their predisaster baseline levels (46% increase), followed by police-reported assaults which increased 27%. Alcohol-related problems resulting in arrests were also reported to increase post-disaster. The purpose of the present study is to bridge the gap between the disaster and marital violence literatures by evaluating the impact of the flood on marital conflict and violence. A multivariate causal model, composed of contextual, situational and outcome variables will be employed to understand the complex interrelationship between environmental stressors and aggressive marital outcomes. A multi-stage area probability sampling procedure will be used to select 200 female (married or cohabitating) residents of two flooded regions in the greater St. Louis region. Female participants will complete self-report measures programmed onto a laptop computer. These measures will be used to assess: flood status and impact; appraisal of impact; coping; social support; alcohol use; symptoms; family environment; marital conflict, marital aggression and violence. Next, female participants will be interviewed using a semi-structured qualitative interview which includes a time line to establish a temporal link between flood onset variables and resultant marital discord/violence. Only female subjects will be used to report marital violence due to evidence in the literature that abusive males minimize their violent behavior. However, male partners will have an opportunity to complete a limited selection of self-report measures to assess: coping; social support; alcohol use; self-control; and masculine gender role schemata. A packet of self-report measures for the males to complete will be left with the female participants. The packet of measures will be given to the male partners at the discretion of the female participants. Path analytic models using LISREL will be employed to evaluate the hypothesized links between contextual, situational, and outcome variables for the female sample. Data for the male sample will be analyzed as indicated based on the response rate. The natural context of the flood lends itself to a study of the factors which predict and moderate the relationship between exposure to a traumatic event and deleterious marital outcomes culminating in violence.
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| Taft, Casey T; Monson, Candice M; Schumm, Jeremiah A et al. (2009) Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms, Relationship Adjustment, and Relationship Aggression in a Sample of Female Flood Victims. J Fam Violence 24:389-396 |
