The impact of anger and PTSD on marital satisfaction in canadian public safety personnel

Abstract

Canadian Public Safety Personnel (PSP) are regularly exposed to traumatic events in the line of their duties, making them more susceptible to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD; APA, 2013; Breslau, Chilcoat, Kessler, & Davis, 1999; Carleton et al., 2017). Examining risk and resilience factors that contribute to the development and maintenance of disorders such as PTSD in PSP is important for prevention and treatment . Anger and marital satisfaction have been identified as having major implications for the development, maintenance, and treatment of PTSD (Forbes et al., 2008; Meffert et al., 2008). In addition to anger being one of the characteristic symptoms of PTSD (APA, 2013), it is associated with increased risk of developing PTSD (Meffert et al., 2008). Marital satisfaction, on the other hand, is a protective factor against PTSD (Vest, Heavy, Homish, & Homish, 2017) and is also associated with lower levels of anger (Vest et al., 2017). This study examined the impact of anger and PTSD on marital satisfaction, while controlling for the confounding effects of depression. The sample included approximately 5813 PSP who participated in a large-scale online survey on mental disorders (Carleton et al., 2017). Symptoms of PTSD, anger, depression and martial satisfaction were assessed using self-report measures. Multiple hierarchical regression analyses identified higher anger (b = -.14) as a statistically significant predictor of lower marital satisfaction. The results suggest that targeting anger in PTSD screening and treatment may be helpful to improve marital relationship satisfaction, an important source of social support.