title: Prospective trajectories of posttraumatic stress in college women following a campus mass shooting.
abstract: In a sample with known levels of preshooting posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptoms, we examined the impact of a campus mass shooting on trajectories of PTS in the 31 months following the shooting using latent growth mixture modeling. Female students completed 7 waves of a longitudinal study (sample sizes ranged from 812 to 559). We identified 4 distinct trajectories (n = 660): (a) minimal impact-resilience (60.9%), (b) high impact-recovery (29.1%), (c) moderate impact-moderate symptoms (8.2%), and (d) chronic dysfunction (1.8%). Individuals in each trajectory class remained at or returned to preshooting levels of PTS approximately 6 months postshooting. The minimal impact-resilience class reported less prior trauma exposure (η(2) = .13), less shooting exposure (η(2) = .07), and greater emotion regulation skills than all other classes (η(2) > .30). The chronic dysfunction class endorsed higher rates of experiential avoidance prior to the shooting than the minimal-impact resilient and high impact-recovery classes (η(2) = .15), as well as greater shooting exposure than the high impact-recovery class (η(2) = .07). Findings suggest that preshooting functioning and emotion regulation distinguish between those who experience prolonged distress following mass violence and those who gradually recover.
authors.affiliation: Northern Illinois University, Department of Psychology, DeKalb, Illinois, USA.
authors.forename: Holly K
authors.initials: HK
authors.lastname: Orcutt
authors.forename: George A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Bonanno
authors.forename: Susan M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Hannan
authors.forename: Lynsey R
authors.initials: LR
authors.lastname: Miron
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002908:Chronic Disease; D056348:Emotional Intelligence; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D054527:Mass Casualty Incidents / Q000523:psychology*; D055500:Resilience, Psychological; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014495:Universities; D014754:Violence / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult