When measuring resilience, the type of trauma suffered matters

From YaleNews
by Kendall Teare

In previous studies of resilience in people, researchers have rarely differentiated in their analysis between the types of traumatic events experienced by individuals. However, the type of trauma undergone seems to be a significant predictor of how someone will fare long-term, according to a new study by researchers at the Yale School of Medicine and the VA Connecticut Healthcare System. Additionally, the team found that reactions to various types of trauma differs greatly by gender.

This paper was published online in the Journal of Traumatic Stress.

Researchers assessed data examining trauma exposure, deployment experiences, and resilience in a subsample of veterans who participated in a large, three-phase longitudinal study examining gender differences in health outcomes and healthcare utilization among veterans who served in support of the recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“When we first analyzed the data without accounting for the type of trauma experienced, it looked as though veteran men were overall more resilient than women following military discharge,” said Galina Portnoy, associate research scientist at Yale, psychologist at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System, and lead author of the study. “But I work with women veterans every day, and I suspected this wasn’t the whole story.”

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