Quality of parental relationships among persons with a lifetime history of posttraumatic stress disorder.

Several studies of combat veterans have examined the relationship between parental satisfaction and PTSD symptoms. These studies found that numbing is associated with substantial decrements in parent-child relationship quality. The current study extends previous work by assessing the effect of PTSD on parent-child relationships in a nationally representative sample of civilian men and women with PTSD resulting from a broad range of trauma. It was hypothesized that PTSD avoidance/numbing symptoms would be predictive of parent-child relationship quality and parent-child conflict. Moreover, these relationships are predicted to hold after controlling for a broad range of support-related variables and work/finance related variables. As hypothesized, after controlling for number of children and respondent-initiated domestic violence, numbing was predictive of increased parent-child aggression.