Trauma, Social Support, and Mental Health Outcomes in a Community Sample of New Zealand Military Veterans.

Abstract

The relationship between social support, mental health, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomatology was investigated in a sample of 229 former New Zealand military personnel. It was hypothesised that veterans reporting greater satisfaction with their social support networks would also report better mental health and lower levels of PTSD symptomatology, and that social support would buffer the relationship between trauma and PTSD. The number of social supports was expected to be unrelated to both PTSD and mental health. Among the subsample of combat veterans (N = 166), results from multiple regression analyses revealed that satisfaction with social support was significantly related to PTSD severity but unrelated to general mental health. The moderating model of social support on the relationship between trauma and PTSD was not supported in hierarchical regression analysis in the total sample (N = 229). Methodological limitations and other explanations for these results are discussed.