Social Work Journal Analysis

The Social Work Journal Vol. 60 issue 3 includes the article Sexual Assault and Depressive Symptoms in College Students: Do Psychological Needs Account for the Relationship, which was published in July 2015. The purpose of this article was to examine the relationship between sexual assault, basic psychological needs, and depressive symptoms in college students; and determine whether basic psychological needs (namely, competence, autonomy, and relatedness) account for the expected association to be found between sexual assault and depressive symptoms in students. This study recruited 349 college students from a university in the southeastern United States; however, seven did not complete all measures and were removed from the study leaving 342
The questionnaire asked the following questions, “Within the last school year, have you experienced verbal threats for sex against your will,” “Within the last school year, have you experienced sexual touching against your will,” “Within the last school year, have you experienced attempted penetration against your will,” and lastly “Within the last school year, have you experienced sexual penetration against your will?” Each question was answered with either a “yes” or “no” response. If participants answered yes they were coded as having experienced sexual assault. Higher scores meant a greater experience of sexual assault over the past year. In order to assess basic psychological needs the General Basic Psychological Needs Scale was used. This scale consists of twenty-one questions, which are broken down into three separate subscales. The first subscale is competence which asks questions similar to “people I know tell me I am good at what I do.” The second subscale is autonomy, which asks questions similar to “I feel like I am free to decide for myself how to live my life.” The third subscale is relatedness, which asks questions similar to