Post-traumatic growth among veterans in the USA: results from the National Health and Resilience in Veterans Study

Abstract

PTG is prevalent among US veterans, particularly among those who screen positive for PTSD. These results suggest that there may be a 'positive legacy' of trauma that has functional significance for veterans. They further suggest that interventions geared toward helping trauma-exposed US veterans process their re-experiencing symptoms, and to develop greater social connections, sense of purpose and intrinsic religiosity may help promote PTG in this population.

Relationships Between Latent Factors of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Posttraumatic Growth

“…They suggest that individuals tend to be intrinsically motivated toward rebuilding their schemas or assumptive worlds toward growth and actualization after facing traumatic events. Furthermore, Tsai et al (2015a) found a significant relationship between PTSD and PTG, but this relationship was curvilinear. Specifically, traumaexposed veterans reporting moderate PTSD levels had the greatest PTG levels (Tsai et al, 2015a).…”

“…Furthermore, Tsai et al (2015a) found a significant relationship between PTSD and PTG, but this relationship was curvilinear. Specifically, traumaexposed veterans reporting moderate PTSD levels had the greatest PTG levels (Tsai et al, 2015a). These studies did not examine possible relationships among the factors of both PTSD and PTG, however.…”

“…Subsequent analyses involved canonical correlation and path analysis models, using observed subscale scores of the PCL and PTGI. We also tested curvilinear relations between PTSD and PTG subscales, because of curvilinear effects between PTG and PTG total scores found previously (Jin et al, 2014;Kleim and Ehlers, 2009;Lechner et al, 2006;Tsai et al, 2015a).…”

Dissociative subtype of DSM-5 posttraumatic stress disorder in U.S. veterans

“…Data were analyzed from 1484 veterans who participated in the second baseline assessment (conducted SeptembereOctober, 2013), which included administration of the DSM-5 version of the PTSD Checklist. Several previous studies have been conducted on data from the first baseline assessment of the NHRVS, which included a different cohort of veterans and did not use the most recent version of the PTSD Checklist (Pietrzak and Cook, 2013;Tsai et al, 2015a).…”

Near-Death Experiences and Posttraumatic Growth

“…Shiri et al (2008) reported that immediacy and proximity to violence were associated with increased posttraumatic growth. Tsai et al (2015) found that the traumatic event most strongly associated with posttraumatic growth was life-threatening illness or injury. They also found that several psychosocial factors, namely, social connectedness, intrinsic religiosity, and purpose in life, were independently related to posttraumatic growth (Tsai et al, 2015).…”