title: Assessment of the Psychosocial Predictors of Health-Related Quality of Life in a PTSD Clinical Sample.
abstract: Although a wide array of the scientific literature explores the links between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, coping strategies, and social support and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) as an outcome variable, their connections remain unclear. It is unknown whether PTSD symptom severity, coping strategies, and social support explain each a unique portion of variance of HRQoL of individuals with PTSD. In the current study, based on pretreatment results of a broader study assessing a specific intervention for PTSD, 94 individuals with PTSD were screened for psychiatric disorders and completed several questionnaires concerning social support, coping strategies, PTSD symptoms, and HRQoL. Coping strategies, social support, and PTSD all appeared to be predictors of HRQoL; however, PTSD seemed to constitute the major predictor among these variables. Indeed, coping strategies and social support did not explain a unique share of variability of HRQoL beyond that of PTSD symptomatology. A causal pathway integrating these variables should be tested in future studies.
authors.affiliation: Trauma Study Center, Fernand-Seguin Research Center, Louis-H. Lafontaine Hospital, Montreal, Canada.
authors.forename: Nadim
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Nachar
authors.forename: Stéphane
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Guay
authors.forename: Dominic
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Beaulieu-Prévost
authors.forename: André
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Marchand
keywords: clinical sample; coping strategies; correlational study; health-related quality of life; posttraumatic stress disorder; social support