Do childhood experiences influence associations between posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms and positive autobiographical memories among military veteran students? An exploratory study.

Background: Evidence links posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and features of positive autobiographical memories (accessibility, vividness, coherence, sharing, emotional intensity, distancing). There is a knowledge gap on how adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and benevolent childhood experiences (BCEs) may influence these relationships.

Objectives: The current study explored whether the number ACEs or BCEs moderated associations between PTSD symptom severity and features of positive autobiographical memories.

Design and methods: The sample included 124 student military veterans who had experienced a trauma (M_age= 33.90; 77.4% male; 75.0% White).

Results: Path analyses showed more PTSD symptom severity was significantly associated with less positive autobiographical memory vividness (β = -0.26, p = .019, R² = 0.06). Further, the number of ACEs moderated the relationship between PTSD symptom severity and positive autobiographical memory accessibility (β = -0.25, p = .023, R²= 0.10) and vividness (β = -0.20, p = .024, R²= 0.10). Among individuals with more ACEs (1 SD above the mean) compared to those with fewer ACEs (1 SD below the mean), less accessibility and vividness of positive autobiographical memories was associated with greater PTSD symptom severity. The number of BCEs was not a significant moderator.

Conclusions: Positive memory-based interventions may be particularly useful to address PTSD symptoms among military veterans with a history of childhood adversity.