Social reactions to disclosure of interpersonal violence and psychopathology: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Public attention has been increasingly paid to how friends, family members, and others can best support survivors of sexual assault and other forms of violence. The broader social support literature posits that perceiving social support positively is more important to mental health than the degree to which social support is actually received, and that negative interactions with social supporters are more harmful than positive interactions are helpful (potentially because negative reactions violate survivors' expectations of their social supporters). This may be especially true after a crisis, such as interpersonal violence. Thus, this systematic review and meta-analysis summarizes the literature on social reactions to interpersonal violence. Meta-regression analyses were performed on 1871 correlations from 51 studies reflecting the degree to which receiving specific reactions more frequently, or perceiving reactions more positively, was associated with psychopathology. Results indicated that negative social reactions to disclosure-especially reactions involving controlling, distracting, and treating survivors differently-were associated with worse psychopathology, whereas positive social reactions did not appear to be protective. Perceiving reactions more positively was associated with less severe psychopathology, but (although causation cannot be concluded) positive perceptions' potential benefit appeared to be smaller than the potential risk conveyed by negative reactions. These findings indicate that interventions which reduce the degree to which survivors receive negative social reactions are needed.

Keywords: Crisis support; Intimate partner violence; Rape; Social support; Trauma.

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