Peritraumatic and trait dissociation differentiate police officers with resilient versus symptomatic trajectories of posttraumatic stress symptoms
✍ Scribed by Isaac R. Galatzer-Levy; Anita Madan; Thomas C. Neylan; Clare Henn-Haase; Charles R. Marmar
- Book ID
- 102444716
- Publisher
- Springer
- Year
- 2011
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 140 KB
- Volume
- 24
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0894-9867
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Abstract
Research has consistently demonstrated that stress reactions to potentially traumatic events do not represent a unified phenomenon. Instead, individuals tend to cluster into prototypical response patterns over time including chronic symptoms, recovery, and resilience. We examined heterogeneity in a posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom course in a sample of 178 active‐duty police officers following exposure to a life‐threatening event using latent growth mixture modeling (LGMM). This analysis revealed 3 discrete PTSD symptom trajectories: resilient (88%), distressed–improving (10%), and distressed–worsening (2%). We further examined whether trait and peritraumatic dissociation distinguished these symptom trajectories. Findings indicate that trait and peritraumatic dissociation differentiated the resilient from the distressed–improving trajectory (trait, p < .05; peritraumatic, p < .001), but only peritraumatic dissociation differentiated the resilient from the distressed–worsening trajectory (p < .001). It is essential to explore heterogeneity in symptom course and its predictors among active‐duty police officers, a repeatedly exposed group. These findings suggest that police officers may be a highly resilient group overall. Furthermore, though there is abundant evidence that dissociation has a positive linear relationship with PTSD symptoms, this study demonstrates that degree of dissociation can distinguish between resilient and symptomatic groups of individuals.