Long-Term Posttraumatic Growth in Victims of Terrorism in Spain

Abstract

BackgroundScientific literature on posttraumatic growth (PTG) after terrorist attacks has primarily focused on persons who had not been directly exposed to terrorist attacks or persons who had been directly exposed to them, but who were assessed few months or years after the attacks.MethodsWe examined long-term PTG in 210 adults directly exposed to terrorist attacks in Spain a mean of 29.6 years after the attacks (range: 2–47 years). The participants had been injured by a terrorist attack (38.6%) or were first-degree relatives of people who had been killed or injured by a terrorist attack (41.4% and 20%, respectively). They completed diagnostic measures of emotional disorders and measures of PTSD and depression symptomatology, optimism, and PTG.ResultsMultiple regression analyses revealed gender differences (women reported higher levels of PTG than did men) and a positive linear relationship between PTG and cumulative trauma after the terrorist attack. Some PTG dimensions were significantly associated with PTSD symptomatology, these associations being linear, not curvilinear. However, PTG was not associated with depression symptomatology, diagnosis of emotional disorders, age, elapsed time since the attack, or optimism. In comparison with survivors assessed 18 years after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, Spanish victims of terrorism showed higher levels of appreciation of life, but lower levels of relating to others and spiritual change.ConclusionThe findings underscore the influence of gender on PTG and provide support to the hypothesis that some emotional distress may be a necessary condition of PTG. Future studies on PTG after terrorist attacks should take into consideration the characteristics of the terrorist attack itself and the contexts of violence and threat in which it occurred. The political, social, and cultural characteristics of the community affected by it and the profile and characteristics of other traumatic events suffered after the attack should also be taken into account in further research.

Dysfunctional Attitudes and Long-Term Posttraumatic Growth in Victims of Terrorist Attacks

“…They know all too well that it can, and their new assumptive world is rebuilt acknowledging this very real possibility in the future". Thus, the inverted U-shaped relationship between the PTG and positive -or negative-core beliefs or attitudes is much more likely to be found when the PTG is examined over the long term (e.g., five or more years after the traumatic event; Fausor et al, 2022) rather than when examined in the short or medium term.…”

“…The sample of participants in this study is the same that participated in the study by Fausor et al (2022). A sample of 210 adults who had been injured in a terrorist attack or who were relatives of people who had died or had been injured in an attack was recruited from members of the Association of Victims of Terrorism (AVT) of Spain.…”

“…Next, multiple regression analyses were performed on each of the PTG measures using as predictors the dysfunctional attitude measures of the EADT or the DAS-R that had shown, either in their linear effect or in their quadratic effect, statistically significant relationships (p < .05) with the corresponding PTG measurement of the PTGI. In these multiple regression analyses, the variables that had also shown significant relationships with the PTG in the previous study carried out with the same sample (Fausor et al, 2022) were included as control predictor variables.…”

Posttraumatic Growth, Metacognitive Beliefs, Self-Absorption and Dysfunctional Trauma-Related Attitudes in a Sample of the Spanish General Populations

“…In the present study, an average of 14.5 years had passed between the most traumatic event that the participants had experienced and the time of assessment. Thus, it might be the case that the lack of a quadratic relationship between PTG and posttraumatic stress symptoms is specific to long-term PTG (cases in which it has been at least five years since the traumatic experience), as suggested by the results of this study and those of Fausor et al (2022).…”

“…Another limitation is connected to questions about the possibility of assessing PTG after an average of 14.5 years since the traumatic experience. This limitation is discussed in greater detail in Fausor et al (2022) and Liébana et al (2022), and it suggests that future research should examine the degree of consistency between self-reported PTG and the changes observed in a person by his or her family, friends and colleagues. Such research should also include a control group to ensure that the growth recorded is really a result of the event and not merely of the passage of time.…”