(PS10-20) Helping or Hurting? The impact of social reactions to sexual assault disclosure on drinking motives in the first year post-assault

Sexual assault (SA) survivors frequently disclose their experiences to informal support networks, often receiving varied social reactions, which can impact PTSD symptoms and other negative outcomes (e.g., alcohol misuse). However, less is known about how specific social reactions influence drinking motives among SA survivors within the first year post-assault, a critical period of heightened vulnerability. Understanding this relationship can help identify pathways to alcohol misuse and inform strategies for fostering supportive, trauma-informed recovery environments. Utilizing baseline data from an ongoing RCT (NCT04124380; N = 73) evaluating brief early interventions for PTSD and alcohol misuse in the first year post-SA, we found that most participants (88%) had disclosed their SA to at least one person prior to study enrollment. Using this subsample (n = 64), we examined how social reactions to SA disclosure influenced drinking motives. Participants were female-identifying, with a mean age of 27.3 years, and were mostly non-Hispanic (75%) and White (75%). Additional eligibility criteria included meeting PTSD threshold (score 23+ on the PTSD Symptom-Scale Interview) and ≥2 heavy episodic drinking incidents in the past month. We used hierarchical linear regression to examine concurrent associations between positive and negative social reactions to SA disclosure (measured by the Social Reactions Questionnaire) and each of the four drinking motives (social, coping, enhancement, and conformity), as assessed by the Drinking Motives Questionnaire. We hypothesized that negative, but not positive, social reactions would be incrementally associated with each drinking motive, beyond the variance accounted for by PTSD symptom severity. Results indicated that PTSD symptom severity explained 8.9% of variance (p = .017) in self-reported motives, and social reactions explained an additional 11.2% (p = .02), with both negative and positive social reactions emerging as significant predictors. Post hoc analyses examining two subscales of positive social reactions revealed that providing “tangible aid” (e.g., offering help seeking medical care or reporting SA) was significantly associated with coping motives, but not “emotional support” (e.g., listening, providing comfort). For conformity motives, negative, but not positive, social reactions accounted for an additional 13.6% of variance (p = .013), suggesting survivors facing negative social reactions were more likely to drink to fit in. No significant associations emerged for enhancement or social motives, indicating social reactions did not meaningfully predict these drinking motives. Our hypotheses were partially supported, as negative social reactions were associated with coping and conformity motives but not social or enhancement motives. Findings highlight negative social reactions as a risk factor for drinking motives, beyond PTSD symptom severity, for survivors disclosing in the first year post-SA. Positive social reactions, particularly those related to actionable next steps for SA survivors may inadvertently increase drinking to cope. Fostering trauma-informed responses to disclosure may help mitigate maladaptive drinking motives among survivors.