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. 2012 Oct;50(10):610-6.
doi: 10.1016/j.brat.2012.06.006. Epub 2012 Jul 14.

A longitudinal test of the bi-directional relations between avoidance coping and PTSD severity during and after PTSD treatment

Christal L Badour  1 , Daniel M Blonigen, Matthew Tyler Boden, Matthew T Feldner, Marcel O Bonn-Miller
Affiliations

A longitudinal test of the bi-directional relations between avoidance coping and PTSD severity during and after PTSD treatment

Christal L Badour et al. Behav Res Ther. 2012 Oct.

Abstract

Avoidance coping and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) covary. However, relatively little research has examined the bi-directional relation between these constructs among individuals in treatment for PTSD. The current longitudinal study examined the reciprocal associations between avoidance coping and PTSD symptom severity during and after residential PTSD treatment among a sample of 1073 military veterans (88.9% male; M(age) = 52.39 years) with chronic, treatment-resistant PTSD. Greater avoidance coping at intake predicted more severe PTSD symptoms at discharge, and severity of PTSD symptoms at discharge predicted increased avoidance at follow-up. Conversely, PTSD symptom severity at intake was not related to avoidance coping at discharge, and in turn avoidance coping at discharge was not related to PTSD symptom severity at follow-up. These findings offer a number of important clinical implications including evidence suggesting avoidance may predict poorer treatment response among individuals seeking treatment for chronic PTSD, and that greater end-of-treatment PTSD symptom severity may predict increased avoidance following treatment.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Structural Model of Cross-lagged Associations Between PTSD Symptom Severity and Avoidance Coping across Intake, Discharge and Follow-up. Parameter estimates shown are standardized beta coefficients. *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001. For the sake of parsimony, associations between the model variables and the covariate of length of stay in treatment are not shown here, but are provided in the Results section.
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