Traumatic stress and coping strategies of sesternary victims following an aircraft disaster in Coventry

Abstract

AbstractIn December 1994, an aircraft was returning to Coventry, UK after unloading a cargo of live animals in Amsterdam. The aircraft struck a pylon, subsequently lost control, and started to descend on a large complex of housing estates. It clipped the roofs of two houses and finally crashed into a woodland area close to the edge of a large housing estate. Hundreds of residents on the housing estate had escaped death and were classified as sesternary victims, in that, but by chance, they would have been primary victims. The aims of the study were to examine the traumatic stress of the sesternary victims and the coping strategies that they employed in order to cope with the effects of the trauma. The hypothesis was that the victims would exhibit traumatic distress associated with a specific model of coping characterized by distancing, escape–avoidance, and seeking social support. Eighty‐two victims participated in the study and were interviewed using the Impact of Event Scale (IES), the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) and the Ways of Coping Checklist (WOC). The results showed that the victims experienced more intrusion than avoidance, and that there were no significant differences between the present samples and standardized samples. Fifty‐six per cent scored above the cutoff point of 4 in the GHQ. Confrontive coping, distancing, self‐controlling, accepting responsibility, escape–avoidance, and positive reappraisal were used by the victims significantly more than the standardized samples. Path analyses showed that avoidance was predicted by the escape–avoidance coping strategy, that intrusion was predicted by distancing and escape–avoidance strategies and that the GHQ total was predicted by distancing and escape–avoidance coping strategies. The conclusion was that the victims exhibited significant traumatic distress which was partially associated with the specific model of coping that we hypothesized. Seeking social support did not seem to account for distress. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.