The concept of "sense of coherence" and the development of posttraumatic stress disorder in traffic accident victims

According to the "sense of coherence" concept, those subjects who can give meaning to a traumatic event can comprehend what has happened and have a se nse of manageability of the sequelae, are able to cope better with the trau matic event itself. In the present study, this concept was applied to traff ic accident victims. Severely injured traffic accident victims were assesse d a few days after the accident and at g-month follow-up. At follow-up, pat ients filled in the 29-item version of the Sense of Coherence (SOC) self-ra ting scale. The results show that the SOC total score correlated negatively with the development of: (i) posttraumatic psychopathology; (ii) psycholog ical disorders (i.e., posttraumatic stress disorder after the accident); an d (iii) anxious cognitions. The personality trait of neuroticism correlated negatively and extraversion and frustration tolerance correlated positivel y with SOC total score. Previous hypotheses are supported by our findings. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Inc.