Employment status and posttraumatic stress disorder following compensation seeking in victims of violence

Abstract

The current study was developed to explore the associations between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), level of compensation for pain and suffering, and employment status in a sample of victims of violence (n = 226) who had held a full-time job at time of victimization and had filed a claim with the Dutch Victim Compensation Fund (DVCF) thereafter. Based on previous research, it was expected that PTSD would be associated with current unemployment. If a relationship between the two were to be found, the study would explore whether this should be ascribed to the presence of a sense of foreshortened future. Results confirmed this hypothesis and indicated that participants with PTSD were more prone to be currently unemployed than non-PTSDs. Additional analyses revealed that PTSD symptom severity and symptom cluster scores were also positively associated to higher unemployment rates. The observed relationships were not merely due to a high level of compensation for pain and suffering and failed to remain significant after adjusting for sense of foreshortened future. Implications for policy practice as well as strengths and limitations of the study were discussed.