Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Self Harm

This article was explaining the coping strategies and internal resources of dispositional optimism and mastery as Predictors of Traumatic Stress and PTSD Symptoms.  Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) defines a result of exposure to a traumatic event.  This study believes that the traumatic event suffered by an individual itself does not warrant a precondition for PTSD.  An individual that has been exposed to a traumatic event plus other variables can be considered as a risk factors.  These three variables fall into three categories; pre-traumatic, peri-traumatic, and post traumatic.  Pre-traumatic are viewed as a vulnerability before the exposure of the traumatic event such as personality traits.  Peri-traumatic factors link the occurrence, dissociation, and victim’s memory of the event.  Post traumatic factors are the immediate and long term reaction and coping ability of the victim.

The method that was used was an experiment group.  This group was comprised of 870 undergraduate students from a university in Northern Israel.  This experiment took place in 2010 in the winter.  They began the experiment by using a questionnaires and complied as a sample base.   The initial method consist of 1,430 undergraduates and 1,365 (90%) completed the questionnaire.  The students were reassessed at two follow up points.  The first point was at the end of the second academic year and the end of the third academic year.   The original number of students that took the questionnaire at the beginning of the experiment only 870 which is (60%) were located and agreed to participate.  The measures they used was a demographic questionnaire and a Traumatic exposure questionnaire.