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Associations Between Perceived Social Reactions to Trauma‐Related Experiences With PTSD and Depression Among Veterans Seeking PTSD Treatment
Author(s) -
Schumm Jeremiah A.,
Koucky Ellen M.,
Bartel Alisa
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
journal of traumatic stress
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.259
H-Index - 134
eISSN - 1573-6598
pISSN - 0894-9867
DOI - 10.1002/jts.21879
Subject(s) - depression (economics) , psychology , clinical psychology , structural equation modeling , posttraumatic stress , psychiatry , veterans affairs , social support , medicine , psychotherapist , economics , statistics , mathematics , macroeconomics
Abstract The Social Acknowledgment Questionnaire (SAQ; Maercker & Mueller, [Maercker, A., 2004]) is a measure of trauma survivors’ perceptions of social acknowledgment and disapproval from others, and these factors are shown to be associated with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among civilian trauma survivors. This study seeks to validate the structure of the SAQ among U.S. military veterans and test the hypothesis that family and general disapproval are associated with PTSD and depression among veterans. Participants were 198 U.S. veterans who experienced military trauma and completed an intake evaluation through a Veterans Affairs PTSD treatment program. Structural equation modeling (SEM) results supported a well‐fitting 3‐factor model for the SAQ that was similar to prior studies in capturing the constructs of social acknowledgment, general disapproval, and family disapproval. SEM results also showed that all 3 of the SAQ factors were associated with veterans’ depression (−.31, .22, and .39, respectively), whereas only general disapproval was related to veterans’ PTSD. This is the first study of which we are aware to investigate the factor structure of the SAQ in a veteran sample and to investigate the relationship between SAQ factors and trauma survivors’ depression. Results build upon prior findings by showing the importance of positive and negative social reactions to veterans’ traumatic experiences.