Date of Award

2010

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Psychology

Abstract

The purpose of the current study is to investigate the traumatic history of youths in the foster care system presenting with sexual behavior problems. Moreover, co-occurring trauma symptoms will be investigated as possibly contributing to the severity of sexual behavior problems in this population. The present study has four primary goals: (1) This study will focus on identifying traumatic experiences that are associated with sexual behavior problems in children and adolescents in the child welfare system; (2) Co- occuring levels of trauma symptoms including posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTS) and sexual concerns (SC; Briere, 1996) will be tested as possible moderators between significant traumatic risk factors and severity of sexual behavior problems demonstrated by youth; (3) Current emotional dysregulation will be tested as a possible mediator in this relationship; (4) Gender will be tested as a moderator in the mediation analyses. Hypotheses and planned data analyses will be based on theory and past research findings in the field of traumatic stress. Both will be discussed in the following sections in greater detail.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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