Traumatic Severity and Trait Resilience as Predictors of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Depressive Symptoms among Adolescent Survivors of the Wenchuan Earthquake

Abstract

PurposeTo examine the associations between trauma severity, trait resilience, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depressive symptoms among adolescent survivors of the Wenchuan earthquake, China.Methods788 participants were randomly selected from secondary schools in the counties of Wenchuan and Maoxian, the two areas most severely affected by the earthquake. Participants completed four main questionnaires including the Child PTSD Symptom Scale, the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale for Children, the Connor and Davidson’s Resilience Scale, and the Severity of Exposure to Earthquake Scale.ResultsAfter adjusting for the effect of age and gender, four aspects of trauma severity (i.e., direct exposure, indirect exposure, worry about others, and house damage) were positively associated with the severity of PTSD and depressive symptoms, whereas trait resilience was negatively associated with PTSD and depressive symptoms and moderated the relationship between subjective experience (i.e., worry about others) and PTSD and depressive symptoms.ConclusionsSeveral aspects (i.e., direct exposure, indirect exposure, worry about others, and house damage) of earthquake experiences may be important risk factors for the development and maintenance of PTSD and depression. Additionally, trait resilience exhibits the beneficial impact on PTSD and depressive symptoms and buffers the effect of subjective experience (i.e., worry about others) on PTSD and depressive symptoms.

Resilience as Mediator in the Relationship between Family Functioning and Depression among Adolescents from Single Parent Families

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Resilience in Igbo Rural Community Adolescents and Young Adults

“…However, there was no significant difference in resilience of males and females in the total sample. Previous studies (Aronen and Kurkela, 1998;Campbell-Sills et al, 2006) have reported the lack of a significant difference in resilience of males and females, while others (Boardman et al, 2008;Stratta et al, 2013;Scoloveno, 2013;Ying et al, 2014) had reported that males were found to report more resilience than females. A number of explanations can be offered with regard to the finding in the current study.…”

“…Evidence of gendered psychological resources (e.g., agency, mastery and worth) in favour of males which may provide the requisite foundation to enable resilience characteristics (Shanahan and Hofer, 2005) have been supported by studies showing higher resilience in adolescent males compared to females (Campbell-Sills et al, 2009;von Soest et al, 2010;Waaktaar and Torgersen, 2012;Abukari and Laser, 2013;Stratta et al, 2013;Ying et al, 2014). Among older populations, males have also been found to report higher resilience (Boardman et al, 2008).…”

Dispositional mindfulness mediates the relationships of parental attachment to posttraumatic stress disorder and academic burnout in adolescents following the Yancheng tornado

“…This scale has 17 items rated on a 4-point Likert scale from 0 (not at all/only once) to 3 (almost always). This scale was applied to the Chinese population with good validity and reliability (Ying, Wu, & Chen, 2013; Ying, Wu, Lin, & Jiang, 2014). In the current study, all items were translated into Chinese.…”