Predictors of posttraumatic stress symptom severity and meaning made in treatment-seeking veterans.

Objective: Combat-exposed veterans risk encountering events that disrupt beliefs. To facilitate reduced discrepancy between prior beliefs and current trauma appraisals, veterans may engage in a process of meaning-making. Meaning-making can lead to positive outcomes, such as integrating the traumatic event into one's life narrative or adapting global meaning (meaning made) or elicit distress.

Understanding help-seeking in rural counties: A serial mediation analysis.

Objective: Rural areas in the Southern United States are characterized by certain cultural values that may delay or prevent mental health service utilization. The present study examined a four-stage chain of serial mediation where higher levels of general self-reliance would be related to greater levels of public stigma, which would in turn be related to higher levels of self-stigma, followed by greater self-reliance about managing mental health problems, and finally, more negative attitudes toward seeking help from psychologists.

Method: Community members who lived in rural counties in the Southern United States (N = 783) completed measures of these constructs online.

Relationships among non-interpersonal and interpersonal trauma types, posttraumatic stress, and posttraumatic growth.

Methods: Adults seeking behavioral health or medical treatment (N = 158) were recruited from a community healthcare agency and a residential support program in the southeastern United States.

Results: Individuals who reported interpersonal trauma had significantly higher total PTS severity and symptom clusters. No significant difference was found in perceived PTG based on trauma type.

Traditional rural values and posttraumatic stress among rural and urban undergraduates.

Although rurality is often treated as an aspect of diversity, researchers disagree regarding whether the traditional rural values of self-reliance, distrust of outsiders, religiosity, centrality of family, and fatalism continue to differentiate rural versus urban undergraduates. The present study examined 1) whether differences in these values exist between rural and urban college students in the United States and 2) whether these rural values might mediate the association between geographic remoteness and posttraumatic stress symptom (PTSS) severity. College undergraduates in the United States who reported experiencing traumatic and/or stressful events (N = 213) completed measures of these constructs through an online survey.

A qualitative analysis of meaning-making and mental health among OIF/OEF veterans.

Objective: After combat, veterans may experience mental health symptomology and attempt to make meaning from their experiences. The present study qualitatively examined the mental health effects of deployment and meaning-making among Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) or Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) veterans.

Method: OIF/OEF veterans who were exposed to combat (N = 14) participated in semi-structured interviews to assess how their perspectives had changed post-deployment.