Patterns of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms and Posttraumatic Growth in an Epidemiological Sample of Chinese Earthquake Survivors: A Latent Profile Analysis

Abstract

Background: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and posttraumatic growth (PTG) are different psychological outcomes triggered by exposure to extraordinarily traumatic events. In this study, we aimed to examine patterns of co-occurrence between DSM-5 PTSD symptoms and PTG, among natural disaster survivors, and to clarify whether empirically-based subgroups differed by several specific predictors.Methods: Latent profile analysis was used to examine patterns of self-reported PTSD symptoms and PTG in an epidemiological sample of 1063 Chinese earthquake survivors.Results: Three distinct profiles were identified, involving high PTSD/high PTG, mild PTSD/mild PTG, and mild PTSD/high PTG. Class membership was predicted by several variables, especially different sources of perceived social support.Conclusion: Our findings contribute to the knowledge about the coexisting patterns of PTSD and PTG, and provide suggestions for identifying high-risk individuals and providing effective interventions in clinical practice.

Patterns of posttraumatic stress disorder and posttraumatic growth among breast cancer patients in China: A latent profile analysis

“…This study did not identify a high PTSS/mild PTG pattern among Chinese BC patients, which was inconsistent with previous research with BC patients from other cultures . However, this result was consistent with similar research conducted among disaster survivors in China . The patterns of PTSS and PTG vary across different types of traumatic events .…”

“…A few previous studies have explored posttraumatic response patterns using LPA. Three of these studies conducted LPA to identify the patterns of PTSS and PTG among earthquake survivors . They found similar three‐class patterns of PTSS and PTG, characterized by mild PTSS/high PTG, mild PTSS/ mild PTG, and high PTSS/high PTG.…”

Coexistence of Post-traumatic Growth and Post-traumatic Depreciation in the Aftermath of Trauma: Qualitative and Quantitative Narrative Analysis

“…Their narratives contained more references to positive emotions than to negative emotions. This result supports previous studies showing that there is a greater number of people who report experiencing more PTG than PTD than those who report experiencing mostly negative changes in the aftermath of trauma (e.g., Chen and Wu, 2017; Kroemeke et al, 2017; Cao et al, 2018).…”

Depression, Anxiety and Post-traumatic Growth Among Bereaved Adults: A Latent Class Analysis

“…They found three clusters: a growth class (high on PTG, low on PTSD symptoms), a “resilient” class (low on both PTG and PTSD), and a symptom and growth class (high on both PTSD and PTG). These same classes were identified in two other studies undertaken with bereaved and non-bereaved adult ( Cao et al, 2018 ) and child and adolescent survivors of the earthquake ( Chen and Wu, 2017 ). Overall, these studies are consistent with previous PTSD literature indicating that PTG may be experienced with or without ongoing distress following trauma.…”

“…Another purpose of the study is to explore predictors of different classes. Predictors to depression and anxiety after the death include gender, educational level, negative self-perception, avoiding attachment style and low social support ( Nickerson et al, 2014 ; Boelen et al, 2016 ; Lenferink et al, 2017 ; Maccallum and Bryant, 2018 ), In terms of studies adopting LCA or LPA, social support ( Chen and Wu, 2017 ; Cao et al, 2018 ), exposure to the trauma and relationship to the deceased ( Zhou et al, 2018a , b ) are found to differentiate PTG class from other classes. We included these loss-related and socio-demographic variables as predictors of subgroup membership in our analysis.…”