UH psychologist explores reducing anxiety among survivors of sexual assault

(Press-News.org) A psychologist at the University of Houston is providing guidance to improve the mental health of victims of sexual violence, recognized by major health organizations as a public health crisis with serious implications on victims’ physical, mental and reproductive health.  

Michael Zvolensky, Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished University Professor of psychology, led a team examining how the violence of a sexual assault can lead to a higher risk of lifelong challenges from post-traumatic stress disorder to alcohol use disorder. His findings are published in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. Exposure to sexual assault maintains a higher risk for severe PTSD and AUD when compared with some other types of traumatic events like combat exposure. 

“Improving mental health and drinking behavior among survivors of sexual assault may require reducing both anxiety sensitivity and pain-related anxiety,” said Zvolensky. Anxiety sensitivity is the fear of anxiety; pain-related anxiety focuses on a specific pain or painful situation.  

The investigation evaluated anxiety sensitivity and pain-related anxiety as linked to mental health and clinically significant alcohol use among 133 persons with a history of traumatic sexual assault who engaged in hazardous drinking.  

“While anxiety sensitivity is generally associated with severe mental health problems, pain-related anxiety is related to alcohol use processes,” said Zvolensky, who admits, however, it’s not that simple. “Anxiety sensitivity may also be especially relevant among people exposed to traumatic sexual assault, as this experience is related to aversive bodily sensations and associated with more risk for coping-oriented drinking and alcohol use problems among trauma-exposed samples.” 

The relevance of the two types of anxiety among hazardous drinkers who are victims of traumatic sexual violence has not been explored until now.  

“The present investigation sought to test the roles of anxiety sensitivity and pain-related anxiety in the context of one another as both factors have been shown to serve as affect-amplifying constructs,” said Neha Pathak, lead author of the study and a doctoral candidate in Zvolensky’s lab. 

The UH team worked with researchers from Texas A&M University and the University of Nevada. 

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