The influence and mechanism of social network on posttraumatic stress disorder

Abstract

Social network plays an important role in the prevention and recovery of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Researches of egocentric network focus on the protective effect of large size and high diversity of social support network on PTSD, while researches about global network focus on social integration. Egocentric network and global network reduce the negative emotional reactions or physiologic and behavioral responses to stress in different ways, the former buffers stress response through social support, the latter emphasizes the importance of interpersonal emotional contagion and social resource change. Future studies are required to explore the relationship between social structure or the social network changes and PTSD by using longitudinal method, in the meantime intervention studies about improving social network to reduce PTSD are also worth doing. Key words: Social network; Egocentric network; Whole network; Posttraumatic stress disorder