‘Very clear’ need, desire for trauma-focused treatment in women’s prisons

Key takeaways:

• Of 51 justice-impacted women, 98% experienced physical and emotional abuse prior to incarceration.
• In addition, 96% had symptoms of PTSD, and 43% had a history of drug-related charges.

NEW YORK — A poster presented at the American Psychiatric Association annual meeting highlighted the need for greater access and engagement in trauma-focused care for incarcerated women, including peer-led interventions.

“There’s a very clear need within this population as well as a very clear desire,” Amy Y. Kim, BA, from Rush University Medical Center, told Healio. “When we had the info session for recruiting participants, the entire room was filled — we were at max capacity. At the end of the info session, every single person who came by wanted to sign up for this intervention, and we could only accommodate 51 of them.”

Kim and colleagues conducted a study at two women’s prisons in the Midwestern U.S. to examine the treatment engagement gap among justice-impacted women, including their perceptions of trauma and attitudes toward intervention for PTSD and substance-use disorders. Researchers included 51 participants and selected eight for in-depth semi-structured interviews before and after intervention.

According to results, all 51 participants reported experiencing at least one traumatic event prior to incarceration, with 98% reporting physical and emotional abuse. Symptoms of PTSD were present in 96% of participants, and 43% had a history of drug-related charges. Of those selected for in-depth interviews, 87.5% reported substance use before incarceration.

Participants also expressed concern about returning to substance use upon release, especially when re-entering communities where previous traumas occurred and substance use is normalized. Some participants stressed the importance of a peer-led component in trauma-focused interventions.

Researchers noted that the individual stories shared during interviews illustrated the challenges to recovery. One participant said, “Who lives sober? I’ve never seen a sober family in my life,” while another participant, who lost her son because of an abusive partner, said, “I’d rather people realize that I’m a drug addict than all the failures ... I’d rather deal with that than, ‘Oh, you’re a failure at being a mom.’”

“The specific stories were the really heartbreaking and jarring part of the study,” Kim told Healio.