This article's secondary goal is to investigate if significant methodological variances among research

may have an impact on any discovered sex differences in traumatic experience and PTSD. The age of

the participants is one such issue. Studies on adults are possibly noteworthy. However, it is unclear if

these results apply to the whole corpus of data or whether PTSD sex differences change with age.

Similar to the previous example, the age at which the PTE occurred, regardless of the participants'

ages, may also be a significant variable, especially in light of sex-specific risks for developing PTSD.

Another factor to consider is if a study used a convenience sample, such college students, or a

random, epidemiological sample. Convenience samples may be skewed in ways that affect how sex

differences in PTEs and PTSD are viewed, which is one possible area of concern. One startling

illustration of this potential comes from who discovered that college dropout rates are higher for

abused children. If females are more likely to be assaulted than boys, then college samples may

undercount the actual number of battered women; also, the abused women who did not drop out

may have PTSD that is more severe than the general population.