Specificity of fear and disgust experienced during traumatic interpersonal victimization in predicting posttraumatic stress and contamination-based obsessive–compulsive symptoms

Emerging evidence has documented comorbidity between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) among individuals with a history of traumatic events. There is growing recognition of the importance of disgust in each of these conditions independently. No study, however, has examined the potential role of disgust in these conditions following traumatic event exposure. The current study examined the unique role of peritraumatic fear, self-focused disgust, and other-focused disgust in predicting posttraumatic stress symptoms and contamination-based OC symptoms among 49 adult women (Mage = 28.37, SD = 13.86) with a history of traumatic interpersonal victimization. Results demonstrated that intensity of peritraumatic self-focused disgust was significantly related to contamination-based OC symptoms while peritraumatic fear and other-focused disgust were related to posttraumatic stress symptoms. These results highlight the need for future research aimed at elucidating the nature of the association between disgust experienced during traumatic events and subsequent psychopathology.

► Obsessive–compulsive (OC) and posttraumatic stress symptoms frequently co-occur. ► Unique affective predictors were examined following interpersonal victimization. ► Peritraumatic fear uniquely predicted posttraumatic stress symptoms. ► Other-focused disgust uniquely predicted posttraumatic stress symptoms. ► Peritraumatic self-focused disgust uniquely predicted contamination OC symptoms.