Posttraumatic stress in aging World War II survivors after a fireworks disaster: A controlled prospective study

Little is known about the effects of cumulative trauma and whether traumatized individuals are more vulnerable. In 2000, a fireworks disaster created the possibility to examine this issue among World War˜II survivors who were part of an ongoing longitudinal study. Between 1998 and 2000 posttraumatic...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of traumatic stress 2006-04, Vol.19 (2), p.291-300
Main Authors: Bramsen, Inge, van der Ploeg, Henk M., Boers, Maarten
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult and adolescent clinical studies
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Analysis of Variance
Anxiety disorders. Neuroses
Biological and medical sciences
Case-Control Studies
Explosions
Female
Humans
Male
Medical sciences
Netherlands - epidemiology
Post-traumatic stress disorder
Prospective Studies
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Recurrence
Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic - epidemiology
Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic - etiology
Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic - psychology
Survivors - psychology
World War II
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Little is known about the effects of cumulative trauma and whether traumatized individuals are more vulnerable. In 2000, a fireworks disaster created the possibility to examine this issue among World War˜II survivors who were part of an ongoing longitudinal study. Between 1998 and 2000 posttraumatic stress increased in disaster exposed respondents as opposed to the control group. War‐related reexperiencing and avoidance also increased. The strongest increase occurred in disaster‐exposed respondents who had low levels of wartime stress and a slight decrease occurred in those who had high wartime exposure. This unique controlled observation suggests that disasters do increase the levels of posttraumatic stress, and that reactivation of previous traumatic events generally occurs. However, the vulnerability hypothesis was not supported.
ISSN:0894-9867
1573-6598
DOI:10.1002/jts.20089