Racial discrimination, racial trauma, and PTSD in college students.

Objective: Extant literature has highlighted the links between experiences of racial discrimination and numerous symptoms of psychopathology, including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and racial trauma. This study aimed to further probe the relationship between racial discrimination, PTSD, and racial trauma through observing how the frequency of, and distress from experiences of racial discrimination relate to symptom clusters of racial trauma and PTSD, while controlling for nondiscrimination-based trauma history.

Method: Participants were 303 racial minority undergraduate students who completed an online battery of questionnaires including the General Ethnic Discrimination Scale, Trauma Symptoms of Discrimination Scale, and PTSD Checklist for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition.

Results: Path analysis revealed a significant relationship between the frequency and distress caused by experiences of racial discrimination and each symptom dimension of racial trauma (as captured by the Trauma Symptoms of Discrimination Scale). However, a path analysis demonstrated that only the frequency of experiences of discrimination was related to symptom clusters of PTSD.

Conclusions: Findings from the present study suggest that the frequency of experiences of discrimination is related to symptoms of racial trauma and PTSD, but that discrimination-related distress may be more closely tied to symptoms of racial trauma than PTSD. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).