An Investigation of the Psychological Impact of Actual and Perceived Financial Hardship on PTSD and Help-Seeking

Abstract

The first chapter is a systematic review exploring the relationship between poverty and socioeconomic status (SES) and the development of PTSD and symptom severity in the literature. The electronic databases PsycInfo, Web of Science Core Collection, EMBASE and PubMed were searched in November 2023. 12 studies of any quantitative design were identified. The extracted data were narratively synthesised finding that higher poverty increases the risk of PTSD and symptom severity. However, the causal impact of poverty on PTSD development and symptom severity cannot be fully understood from this synthesis as all studies investigating poverty were cross-sectional. The relationship between SES and PTSD development and symptom severity is inconclusive from this systematic review. This highlights the need for further longitudinal research investigating the causal relationship between these factors.

The second chapter is an empirical paper investigating the relationship between financial threat, help-seeking intentions, mental wellbeing and attachment anxiety and avoidance. 148 participants completed an online survey compiled of questionnaires measuring the above variables at two timepoints three months apart in a longitudinal design. Mikulincer & Shaver’s (2003) model of adult attachment was used to consider the relationship between these variables, and tested using zero-order 1-tailed correlations, mediation analysis (model 4, Hayes, 2022) and moderated mediation (model 15, Hayes, 2022). An overall model identified that high financial threat led to lower mental wellbeing which in turn reduced intentions to seek help three months later. This relationship between mental wellbeing and help-seeking intentions was moderated by low-to-moderate anxious attachment.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Stella Rebecca Pareas: orcid.org/0009-0006-3888-4106

ORCID for Thomas Richardson: orcid.org/0000-0002-5357-4281

ORCID for Nick Maguire: orcid.org/0000-0003-4295-8068

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