The relationship between sense of hope, family support and post-traumatic stress disorder among children: The case of young victims of rocket attacks in Israel

Abstract

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is diagnosed commonly in Israeli children following violent episodes of the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict. Research has suggested that as many as 70% of war-affected children present symptoms of PTSD. This study examined two factors that may contribute to resiliency: perceived social support and sense of hope. The research participants (n = 311) were children who experienced the rocket attacks during Israel's Second Lebanon War and a control group of Israeli children from a town that was not affected directly by the 2006 war. It was hypothesized that a complex relationship would be demonstrated between presentation of symptoms of PTSD and perceived social support. It was hypothesized further that an inverse relationship would be measured between sense of hope and presentation of symptoms of PTSD in the children who experienced the rocket attacks and that those in the control group would show less symptoms of PTSD than those in the experimental group. Finally, females were expected to show more symptoms of PTSD than males. The results showed a negative correlation between sense of hope and PTSD, while family support was correlated positively with PTSD.

Acute Symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress and Dissociative Experiences Among Female Israeli Civilians Exposed to War: The Roles of Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Sources of Resilience

“…Together, the present findings provide support for the hypothesis that intrapersonal (hope, optimism, and self-esteem) and interpersonal (perceived social support from family, friends, and significant others) sources of resilience would have unique associations with acute symptoms after traumatic experiences. These findings are consistent with previous results showing that hope and family support were associated with PTSD symptoms among children who experienced rocket attacks in Israel (Kasler, Dahan, & Elias, 2008).…”

Intrapersonal Resilience Moderates the Association Between Exposure-Severity and PTSD Symptoms Among Civilians Exposed to the 2014 Israel–Gaza Conflict

“…That is, their symptoms increased until exposure-severity reached moderate levels, but there was no corresponding increase in PTSD symptoms as exposure-severity continued to increase. This pattern is consistent with previous results suggesting that positive personality features may protect individuals from experiencing fear and associated forms of psychopathology in potentially life-threatening situations (Kasler, Dahan, & Elias, 2008). In contrast, participants with low levels of intrapersonal resilience reported relatively high levels of PTSD symptoms in the low exposure-severity region which were similar to those reported by their counterparts in the moderate exposure-severity region.…”

The Role of Proximal and Distal Resilience Factors and Locus of Control in Understanding Hope, Self-Esteem and Academic Achievement among Turkish Pre-adolescents

“…This finding was also very much expected since familial factors of resilience have been found to relate to hope levels in earlier studies (e.g. Heaven and Ciarrochi 2008;Kasler et al 2008). …”