General self-efficacy and posttraumatic stress after a natural disaster: a longitudinal study
Self-efficacy may be an important factor in individuals' recovery from posttraumatic stress reactions after a natural disaster. However, few longitudinal studies have investigated whether self-efficacy predicts the course of posttraumatic recovery beyond lower initial levels of distress. The pu...
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Published in | BMC Psychology Vol. 4; no. 15; p. 15 |
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Main Authors | , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
England
BioMed Central Ltd
06.04.2016
BioMed Central |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Self-efficacy may be an important factor in individuals' recovery from posttraumatic stress reactions after a natural disaster. However, few longitudinal studies have investigated whether self-efficacy predicts the course of posttraumatic recovery beyond lower initial levels of distress. The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether general self-efficacy is related to recovery from posttraumatic stress reactions from a longitudinal perspective.
A total of 617 Norwegians exposed to the 2004 Southeast Asian tsunami completed self-report questionnaires measuring their level of disaster exposure and general self-efficacy at 6 months and posttraumatic stress reactions 6 months and 2 years post-disaster. Predictors of changes in posttraumatic stress reactions were analyzed with multivariate mixed effects models.
Self-efficacy at 6 months post-disaster was unrelated to trauma exposure and inversely related to posttraumatic stress reactions at 6 months and 2 years post-disaster. However, self-efficacy was not related to recovery from posttraumatic stress reactions between 6 months and 2 years post-disaster.
In conclusion, general self-efficacy is related to lower levels of posttraumatic stress reactions in the first months after a disaster but does not appear to be related to improved recovery rates over the longer term. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 2050-7283 2050-7283 |
DOI: | 10.1186/s40359-016-0119-2 |