Traumatic experiences, acculturation, and psychological distress among Syrian refugees in Turkey: The mediating role of coping strategies

The Role of Coping Strategies in Post-Traumatic Growth among Syrian Refugees: A Structural Equation Model

“…Although we did not have any postulation regarding antecedents of trauma severity among Syrian refugees, we found that the mean of trauma severity ranged 1.62 to 1.97, which could be considered a relatively modest level of trauma among Syrian refugees living in Turkey. However, previous studies reported high rates of traumatic experiences among Syrian refugees [47,82]. These findings might be explained due to the length of stay in the host country, because time elapsed since displacement might undermine the level of trauma exposure with the decay of the stress response [11].…”

“…We utilized top-down model building where we included all possible covariates in the model and then removed the non-significant ones as one at a time by considering the model fit improvement [73]. In each model, age, sex, and length of stay in Turkey were considered as covariates since previous studies concluded that those variables might have an effect on an individual's experience of traumatic events [47], post-migration stressors [75], and also PTG [76]. In the mediation models, we tested the significance of the indirect effects by using the bootstrapping technique (1000 resampling) with 95% confidence intervals [77].…”

“…We found that post-migration stressors have positively predicted the use of maladaptive coping strategies among Syrian refugees and this, in turn, predicted low levels of PTG. In this sense, social adaptation problems, discrimination, and unemployment might lead to higher cumulative stress, which later depletes adaptive coping resources and triggered maladaptive coping strategies in refugees [47,67,86]. Further, these triggered maladaptive coping strategies may undermine PTG.…”

“…Further, researchers in coping literature posit that problem-focused coping strategies are more adaptive for the controllable situation, while emotion-focused coping strategies are more adaptive in uncontrollable situations [45,46]. On that ground, researchers have utilized these two constructs as separate entities in their models (e.g., [47,48]). Aligned with this conceptualization, we also used these two constructs as distinct variables.…”

“…In a similar vein, trauma and coping are considered to be related, and several studies indicated that trauma might diminish the capacity to cope with stressful life events [37] and increase the use of maladaptive coping strategies [50]; thereby, those coping strategies might be indirectly associated with trauma outcomes [18]. Furthermore, one of the previous studies reported that there is a negative correlation between past traumatic experiences and maladaptive and also adaptive coping strategies such as those that are problem-focused and emotionfocused [47]. Contrary to this finding, some studies indicated that traumatic experiences were positively associated with the use of emotion and problem-focused coping strategies [18,51].…”