Longitudinal Examination of Sexual (Re)victimization and Maturing Out of Problem Drinking from College to Adulthood

Abstract

The present study examined how young women’s history of sexual victimization (SV) and revictimization affects the process of “maturing out” of heavy episodic drinking (HED) and drinking to cope (DTC) motivation from college to adulthood. Data were from a longitudinal burst study of college students at a northeastern university. Female students were surveyed in Wave 1 (college; N = 583, M_age = 19.1), Wave 2 (post-college; n = 507, M_age = 24.5), and Wave 3 (adulthood; n = 429, M_age = 30.8). SV history, HED, and DTC were assessed at each wave, with drinking outcomes measured daily during a 30-day diary protocol and aggregated at the person-level. We hypothesized that women with SV history, especially revictimized women, would show greater HED and DTC motivation, and that normative “maturing-out” of HED and DTC trajectories during the post-college period would decrease less among women with SV and revictimization history. ANOVA and longitudinal GEE models controlled for race/ethnicity, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)symptoms. Women who had been revictimized reported higher DTC motivation than women with no SV history, child/adolescent SV, or adult SV. There were significant wave × SV interactions for HED, indicating that revictimized women decreased HED less over time compared to women with child/adolescent or adult-only SV. Exploratory analysis suggests that the effects of SV might be related to depressive and PTSD symptoms. Sexual revictimization may interfere with some aspects of the normative process of “maturing out” of problematic drinking that most young people exhibit after college. Given the increasing rates of alcohol use disorders among women, the current study highlights the importance of examining risk factors such as sexual revictimization, which remains a persistent public health crisis among this population.