to individuals without substance use disorders. The authors proved the connection between traumatic events and the use of coping and defense mechanisms as methods to internalize the event. Defense mechanisms and religion are used to manage traumatic experiences, but they do not prevent the connection between trauma and substance abuse (Prout, T. A. et al., 2015). The article was thorough and informative by providing a detailed description of the study as well as meeting the purpose of the project. The descriptive qualitative study confirmed the expectation of the use of defense mechanisms and coping strategies in individuals with previous traumatic experiences. However, the research did not prove religion and coping mechanisms to be a potent safeguard between traumatic experiences and substance abuse.

Curley, M., & Johnston, C. (2014) analyzed college-aged women who had an abortion. The article was far from concise and included minute detail about the study allowing for others to replicate the research. The purpose of the level IV cross-sectional correlational study design was to identify behavioral interventions to help college-age women experiencing psychological distress post-abortion. The sample included 45 college students from two countries, the United States and Canada. Participants must have experienced psychological distress and sought treatment after an abortion. Data collection occurred between January 2007 and January 2010 at the McGill University Student Health Services in Montreal, Canada. Data included reproductive health information, demographic data, and participant preferences related to interventions. The participants completed a questionnaire after the abortion to measure the interventions received. The study found four factors of preferred interventions. The first factor contained upsetting guilt in which the participants strongly preferred assistance with managing guilt. The second factor involved reproductive control; the women stated a strong desire for assistance with prevention of pregnancy. Factor three discussed independent coping where the participants had a strong preference for assistance with coping techniques. Factor four entailed assistance with spirituality where the young women wished for assistance with spirituality related to the grief and loss associated with abortion. Ninety-eight percent of participants wanted a professional intervention offered in relation to abortion care (Curley, M., & Johnston, C. (2014). The authors emphasized the psychological effects of abortion on young women and analyzed possible methods for assisting with the management of psychological distress. Participants personal preferences in abortion care were identified and insight on potential program development was provided to help young women cope with the psychological distress associated with abortions.
Iverson, Litwack, Pineles, Suvak, Vaughn, & Resick (2013), engineered a level IV prospective research design analyzing intimate partner violence. The purpose of the study was to review the effects of PTSD symptoms and the coping strategies used to combat them to determine the possibility of a reoccurrence of intimate partner violence on female victims. Women selected for analysis experienced intimate partner violence for 3 months minimum in the past year with reports of a minimum of two severe acts of violence or four minimal acts of violence, but the most recent experience was between two weeks to six months prior to the study. Sixty-nine women were selected to complete a baseline assessment and a follow-up assessment six months later. Four assessment scales were administered to each woman, “the Conflict Tactics Scale-2 (CTS-2), the Posttraumatic Diagnostic Scale (PDS), the Dissociative Experiences Scale-II (DES-II), and the Coping Strategies Inventory (CSI)” (Iverson et al., p. 104, 2013). After the assessments were completed the researches provided a post-conference and a safety presentation to the women. Roughly 46% of the wo