Coping with Community-Based and Personal Trauma: National Response Following September 11th

University Of California-Irvine, Irvine CA

Investigators

Abstract

At some point in their lives, most people encounter stressful events that can have a major impact on the course and direction of their lives. However, after decades of research, it is clear that many assumptions held in society about how individuals respond to life's traumas have not survived empirical test. For example, in contrast to widely held myths about the coping process, the data fail to demonstrate universal reactions to stressful life events. Despite the popular belief that emotional and cognitive responses to stress follow a clear pattern, there is little empirical evidence for an orderly sequence of stages of response. Understanding the general process of coping will be enhanced through examination of group and individual differences, as well as similarities, in response to a variety of negative life experiences. The principal investigator started a longitudinal investigation of early emotional, cognitive, and social responses to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Using an anonymous Web-based survey methodology, stress and coping data were collected from a large nationally representative sample of adults and adolescent/parent dyads (with an over-sampling from 4 cities that have experienced community-based trauma: New York City, Oklahoma City, Miami, and Littleton, CO) at 9-14 days, two months, and six months following September 11. This project continues the prospective study, following the sample with four specific aims: 1) To investigate the psychological and social processes that help explain individual differences in response to a national traumatic event; 2) To identify early predictors of long-term adjustment to both the 9/11 attacks and subsequent events that may occur; 3) To compare responses to the 9/11 events among individuals who have previously experienced a traumatic event (either personally or in their communities) with those who have not previously encountered trauma; and 4) To investigate prospectively the psychological and social processes that help explain variation in response to various stressful life events more generally. The unparalleled nationwide impact of the September 11th attacks, coupled with the large and representative nature of the existing national sample and the early collection of emotional, cognitive and social responses to these events, provides a remarkable opportunity to examine longitudinally how individuals and communities respond to stressful life events more generally. Such an examination can be conducted without several specific methodological limitations that have plagued prior research (e.g., small or demographically homogenous samples). Information collected in this effort can illuminate the coping process more generally so as to advance future conceptual work in this area. Moreover, it can further the understanding of the unique needs of traumatized individuals and provide information to help identify individuals at risk for subsequent difficulties. With these data in hand, educational and intervention efforts that are designed and implemented among health care professionals and the community at large can be better informed, more cost-effective and more sensitive to the needs of the populace.