• Laura C Wilson and Angela Scarpa.
• Department of Psychological Science, University of Mary Washington, 1301 College Ave, Fredericksburg, VA, USA. Electronic address: lwilson5@umw.edu.
• Psychiatry Res. 2017 Nov 1; 257: 290-295.

AbstractIt is well documented in the sexual assault literature that more than half of rape survivors do not label their experience as rape. This is called unacknowledged rape. Although this phenomenon is common and undoubtedly has huge implications for psychotherapy, the impact of acknowledgment status on psychological adjustment is unclear. The present study aimed to delineate the unique impact of rape acknowledgment on psychopathology by examining PTSD symptoms at the cluster level. To examine this, 178 female college students who reported rape completed an online survey, including an assessment of PTSD symptoms in the past month. The results suggested that, after accounting for several covariates, acknowledged rape survivors reported significantly greater levels of intrusion and avoidance symptoms compared to unacknowledged rape survivors. The findings suggest that examining PTSD symptoms at the cluster level may provide more insight into the process of recovery following rape and therefore may better inform treatment decisions.Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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