Beyond linear evidence: The curvilinear relationship between secondary traumatic stress and vicarious posttraumatic...

Insufficient and inconsistent research exists regarding the relationship between secondary traumatic stress (STS) and vicarious posttraumatic growth (VPTG). Some authors suggest that the STS-VPTG relationship can be linear, whereas others suggest that the relationship can best be represented as curvilinear. Therefore, the purpose of the current study was to examine whether the relationship between STS and VPTG is essentially linear or curvilinear. A cross-sectional correlational research design was employed, and a total of 258 surgeons, psychiatrists, and physicians who deal with victims of the ongoing conflict were selected. After controlling for the effects of vicarious and direct traumatic exposure and experience, results of hierarchical regression provide support for the curvilinear association between STS and VPTG among the overall sample (the curvilinear model explained 4.6% of the variance in Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI) scores beyond the variance explained by the linear model) and among professional groups of surgeons and physicians (the curvilinear model explained 4.3% of the variance in PTGI scores among surgeons and 3.5% of the variance in PTGI scores among physicians over and above variance explained by the linear models, respectively). Findings suggest that moderate levels of STS are most associated with the highest levels of VPTG.