EFFECTS OF STRESSFUL STIMULI - A COMPARISON BETWEEN 2 TIME PERIODS

Studies of the effects of stressful stimuli that occurred sometime in the past have generally found both intrusion and avoidance as conseque nces. The present investigation used Horowitz et al.'s (1979) Impact o f Events Scale to compare the responses of victims who had been recent ly evacuated to a hotel after a missile attack on their home with a si milar group one year later. Although during the attacks intrusion resp onses were found to be significantly higher than avoidance, the means on the two mental states did not differ significantly one year after. In addition, intrusion was found to be more highly correlated with sev eral functioning measures; this latter trend becoming more pronounced at Time 2. Implications of the findings and limitations of the study w ere mentioned. (C) 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.