Social relations and PTSD symptoms: A prospective study on earthquake-impacted adolescents in Taiwan

✍ Scribed by Chih-Hsun Wu; Sue-Huei Chen; Li-Jen Weng; Yin-Chang Wu

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 133 KB
• Volume: 22
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0894-9867
• DOI: 10.1002/jts.20447

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

This prospective longitudinal study examined two competing models, a traditional social support model and a supportive and detrimental social relations model, to clarify the association of PTSD symptoms with supportive and detrimental social relations. Seven‐hundred five adolescents living near the epicenter of the Taiwan Chi‐Chi Earthquake participated in the study. The models were evaluated and cross‐validated using structural equation modeling. The supportive and detrimental social relations model appeared to be a better fit. After further evaluation of three nested versions of the supportive and detrimental social relations model, detrimental social relations was found to partially mediate the relationship between PTSD symptoms 1 and 2 years following the earthquake. The findings suggest that helping adolescents deal with detrimental social relations can contribute to postdisaster adjustment.