Posttraumatic growth and posttraumatic distress relationship across time: a change dynamics approach.

Background and objectives: Posttraumatic growth research demonstrates equivocal findings with limited consensus on the expected relationship between posttraumatic growth and posttraumatic distress. This study evaluated the relationship of the change dynamics for posttraumatic growth and posttraumatic distress using a nonlinear approach.

Design: A longitudinal design with three primary surveys at baseline, 6-weeks, and 6-months and a daily survey (Ecological Momentary Assessment: EMA) for a month immediately after baseline was used.

Methods: Participants opted in to participate in a daily EMA for 1-month. The brief daily (<5 min) surveys included traumatic distress, coping, posttraumatic growth, and posttraumatic distress. We investigated the relationship of change dynamics (level, velocity, and acceleration) for both posttraumatic distress and posttraumatic growth. We utilized multilevel modeling.

Results: We found significant models for level, velocity, and acceleration of distress with velocity and acceleration of posttraumatic growth. Level of posttraumatic growth was not significant in any of our models when posttraumatic growth velocity and acceleration were included.

Conclusions: The synchronization of PTG and distress change dynamics offer unique insights into the process of how these variables interrelate over time. These findings provide important new research avenues that may shed light on the equivocal findings encountered in this literature.