UCSF

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between interpersonal violence and background traumas and symptom distress in a community sample of Colombian women (N = 217). The Life Stressor Checklist-Revised was used to measure lifetime interpersonal violence and background trauma exposure. The Brief Symptom Inventory was used to measure current symptom distress. Although both exposures were common in this sample, interpersonal violence was strongly correlated with current symptom distress; background traumas made no unique contribution to the variance in current symptom distress. The findings suggest that interpersonal events may be particularly distressing.