Social sharing of Gulf War experiences: association with trauma-related psychological symptoms

It commonly is believed that talking with family and friends (social sharing) about stressful or traumatic experiences can be therapeutic with regard to stress-related psychological symptoms. Two years after serving in the Gulf War, 58 National Guard Reservists completed the Mississippi Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Scale (PTSD), the Brief Symptom Inventory, and a measure of social sharing that asked how much they had talked to family and friends about their experiences in the Gulf during the 2-year period since returning from the war. Subjects had a broad range of Mississippi PTSD scores. Six subjects met Mississippi criteria for PTSD. Degree of talking to family and friends about Gulf War experiences did not account for a significant portion of the variance in the prediction of PTSD symptoms but did significantly contribute to prediction of scores for interpersonal sensitivity, depression, and psychoticism. Thus, degree of talking with family and friends was not found to be related to PTSD symptoms, although it may have influenced some symptoms of general psychopathology, such as depression, that are not specific to PTSD.