Perceived social support, emotional self-disclosure, and posttraumatic growth in children following a typhoon: a three-wave cross-lagged study
View abstract on PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.Perceived social support and emotional self-disclosure mutually reinforce each other, fostering posttraumatic growth (PTG) in children after disasters. Interventions should enhance social support and encourage emotional self-disclosure.
Area Of Science
- Psychology
- Trauma Studies
- Child Development
Background
- Children experiencing natural disasters face risks to their psychological well-being.
- Understanding factors that promote resilience and posttraumatic growth (PTG) is crucial for intervention development.
Purpose Of The Study
- To investigate the temporal relationships between perceived social support, emotional self-disclosure, and PTG in children affected by the super typhoon Lekima.
- To examine the reciprocal influences of social support and self-disclosure on children's PTG over time.
Main Methods
- Longitudinal study using three waves of self-report questionnaires administered to children at 3, 15, and 27 months post-typhoon.
- Cross-lagged panel models were employed to analyze data from 351 children who completed all assessments.
- Statistical controls included trauma exposure, age, gender, family income, and parental marital status.
Main Results
- Perceived social support predicted later emotional self-disclosure and PTG.
- Emotional self-disclosure predicted later perceived social support and PTG.
- PTG did not predict subsequent perceived social support, suggesting a unidirectional influence from support and disclosure to growth.
- Mediation analyses confirmed that social support fostered PTG through self-disclosure, and vice versa.
Conclusions
- Perceived social support and emotional self-disclosure are mutually reinforcing factors that promote posttraumatic growth in children.
- Interventions following disasters should focus on bolstering children's social support networks and encouraging open emotional expression.
- These findings highlight the importance of social and communicative factors in children's psychological recovery and resilience after trauma.
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