Traumatic severity and trait resilience as predictors of posttraumatic stress disorder and depressive symptoms among adolescent survivors of the Wenchuan earthquake.

Liuhua Ying,Xinchun Wu,Lina Jiang,Chongde Lin,Soraya Seedat

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0089401

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.

Highlights

The 2008 Wenchuan earthquake was the most devastating natural disaster that had occurred in China since the 1976 Tangshan earthquake: An estimated 69, 277 people lost their lives and countless others were injured, displaced, or incurred financial losses
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is usually considered to be the most prevalent psychopathology in adolescents exposed to the deadly earthquake [1,2,3,4,5]
Giannopoulou et al showed that the prevalence rate of PTSD 6–7 months after the 1999 Athens earthquake was 35.7% among youths aged 9–17 years [4]

Summary

Introduction

The 2008 Wenchuan earthquake was the most devastating natural disaster that had occurred in China since the 1976 Tangshan earthquake: An estimated 69, 277 people lost their lives and countless others were injured, displaced, or incurred financial losses. The earthquake led to a range of negative psychological consequences among child and adult survivors, such as posttraumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, and suicidality. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is usually considered to be the most prevalent psychopathology in adolescents exposed to the deadly earthquake [1,2,3,4,5]. In addition to PTSD symptoms, child exposed to traumatic events usually experience comorbid depression. Previous studies reported that the prevalence rates of depression ranged from 13.6% to 40.8% in children exposed to an earthquake [1,6,7,8]. The disparity in rates of PTSD and depression across studies could be attributed differences in the severity of traumatic events, the timing of psychiatric assessment, and the diversity of the research methodologies employed [9,10]

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