Still rising: Predictors of African American women’s posttraumatic growth after sexual assault.

As the trauma literature begins to incorporate multicultural, feminist, womanist, and strength-based approaches and ideas, research is shifting from a focused examination of PTSD to a more holistic view that includes studies examining both distress- and growth-related factors (Bryant-Davis & Comas-Diaz, 2016). To this end, a longitudinal community sample of African American adult women survivors of sexual assault (n = 506) was used to examine how various background and post-assault factors related to changes in posttraumatic growth (PTG) over three years, using mixed model regression analyses. Analyses showed that increases in social support and greater total number of traumatic life events were associated with significant increases in PTG levels. Greater characterological self-blame was related to lower average PTG. Seeking counseling following the assault, behavioral self-blame and wave were not significant predictors of changes in PTG. Implications for culturally responsive interventions are provided.