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After Experiencing a Tornado: Adolescents’ Longitudinal Trajectories in Posttraumatic Growth and Their Association with Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms

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Abstract

This study investigated the trajectories in posttraumatic growth (PTG) among adolescents who survived from the Yancheng tornado in China, and explored the effects of posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) on these trajectories. Participants (n = 246) finished 4 assessments at 6, 9, 12, and 18 months after the tornado. Growth mixture model and logistic regression were used to examine the heterogeneous trajectories and the role of PTSS for differentiating trajectories respectively. Two latent PTG trajectories were observed: group with decreasing PTG and group with fluctuant PTG, which might stem from the illusory component and the factual component of PTG respectively based on the two-component model; and adolescents with more PTSS had higher probabilities generating decreasing PTG, that is, illusory PTG. This study suggested differentiating PTG trajectories and related influencing factors to improve the post-disaster psychological interventions in a longitudinal perspective.

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Funding

This research was funded by The National Social Science Fund of China (Grant no. 20CSH068).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, Nanjing Normal University, No. 122 Ninghai Road, Gulou District, Nanjing, 210097, People’s Republic of China

    Jiaqi Zhao, Yuanyuan An & Jiali Huang

  2. School of Family and Consumer Sciences, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, USA

    Xiaohui Li

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  1. Jiaqi Zhao
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Correspondence to Yuanyuan An.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of School of Psychology, Nanjing Normal University, China.

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Zhao, J., An, Y., Li, X. et al. After Experiencing a Tornado: Adolescents’ Longitudinal Trajectories in Posttraumatic Growth and Their Association with Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev 54, 786–795 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-021-01278-4

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