The impact of social support, unit cohesion, and trait resilience on PTSD in treatment-seeking military personnel with PTSD: The role of posttraumatic cognitions

Abstract

These findings suggest that among active duty military personnel seeking treatment for PTSD, personal resources (social support, unit cohesion, and trait resilience) may mitigate PTSD severity by reducing negative posttraumatic cognitions.

The impact of trauma exposure and moral injury on UK military veterans: a qualitative study

“…In terms of risk and protective factors for experiencing distress following ethically challenging events, several elements including a lack of social support, event context and feeling unprepared were perceived by veterans to increase one's vulnerability to distress. These findings are generally consistent with existing research; for example, a lack of social support has been found to be a risk factor for heightened distress following a variety of other military-related traumatic events (Zang et al, 2017). Whether perceived unawareness or unpreparedness about the potential emotional or psychological consequences of ethical decision-making is a risk factor for moral injury requires additional research.…”

Associations between changes in resilient coping and posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms

“…Because PTSD is associated with substantial psychological and societal burden, researchers are investigating genetic, epigenetic, neurochemical, and psychosocial correlates of this condition (Banerjee, Morrison, & Ressler, 2017; Faye, McGowan, Denny, & David, 2017; Feder et al, 2016; Horn et al, 2016; Osorio, Probert, Jones, Young, & Robbins, 2017; Zang et al, 2017). It is noteworthy that many individuals with a history of traumatic experiences do not develop PTSD (Kessler et al, 2017).…”

“…The pattern of associations between PTSD and resilience appears similar across research studies regardless of how resilience is conceptualized and measured. In cross‐sectional studies from a wide variety of countries, resilience has consistently been inversely correlated with PTSD (Duan, Guo & Gan, 2015; Teche et al, 2017; Zang et al, 2017), and it has often been found to moderate or mediate the impact of stress, abuse, neglect or trauma on PTSD severity (Kim, Kim, & Kong, 2017; Lee et al, 2016; Ying, Wu, Lin, & Jiang, 2014). In a longitudinal study of military service personnel, patients with low resilience were at significantly greater odds for developing PTSD, to the degree that the researchers estimated that increasing resilience by 20% could reduce the odds of developing PTSD by 73% and the incidence of PTSD by 32%, with a potential cost savings of 196 million dollars annually (Vyas et al, 2016).…”

Prospective Study of Polygenic Risk, Protective Factors, and Incident Depression Following Combat Deployment in US Army Soldiers

“…Protective effects in the presence of high polygenic risk have been shown in cardiology (27) and we now apply this framework in psychiatry. While previous research has identified unit cohesion as a protective factor for mental health following deployment, most studies have been cross-sectional (16,17,(28)(29)(30)(31)(32) and ours represents at least a four-fold increase in scale compared to existing prospective studies of unit cohesion and mental health (33,34), in addition to being the first to integrate genetic data. Fourth, we corroborate prior evidence that unit cohesion is associated with reduced risk for incident MDD despite high levels of combat stress exposure (28,(31)(32)(33)(34) and extend this to show that pre-deployment unit cohesion, combat stress exposure, and genetic susceptibility additively, and to some extent orthogonally, influence risk for incident MDD.…”

“…Unit cohesion-which includes emotional safety, bonding, and support between soldiers and with unit leaders-is an extrinsic factor that has also received substantial attention. Although these factors are well characterized for their protective effects on post-deployment mental health (14)(15)(16)(17), the extent to which they attenuate risk for MDD in the presence of genetic susceptibility has not been examined.…”