Traumatic exposure, posttraumatic stress, social support, and religious participation among adult supervisors of the Nairobi USA embassy bombing

Abstract

This study examined 240 adults exposed to the 1998 Nairobi USA Embassy terrorist bombing nine months post-disaster. There were three aims: (a) assess the level of bombing exposure; (b) examine the relationship between traumatic exposure and posttraumatic stress (PTS); (c) evaluate roles of social support, and religious participation on PTS. About 86% of the subjects reported high-level of bombing exposure with 80% falling within the cut off score for high-level clinician concern for severity of PTS. Due to the homogeneous nature of the sample on severity of both bombing exposure and PTS, there were no significant relationships between exposure and PTS. However, social support was negatively related to severity of PTS. Implications of these findings are discussed.