The Role of Negative Cognitive Appraisals in PTSD Symptoms Following Spinal Cord Injuries
Abstract
This study aimed to investigate factors associated with persistent Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in people with Spinal Cord Injury (SCI). In the context of a cognitive model, it sought to determine how influential cognitive appraisals were in predicting persistent PTSD when compared to other known predictor variables in the literature such as injury severity. A sample of 50 inpatients receiving rehabilitation for SCI who were 3–24 months post-injury were interviewed using a series of standardized measures of PTSD symptoms and diagnosis, post-traumatic cognitive appraisals, social support, and injury severity. For PTSD symptoms, significant relationships were found for greater injury severity, lower satisfaction with social support and more negative cognitions. Negative cognitions were found to predict variance in PTSD symptoms over and above the non-cognitive variables, although gender and injury severity were also predictors. The only significant predictor of PTSD diagnosis was the cognitive sub-scale “negative cognitions about the self”. Cognitive appraisals were found to be important predictors of persisting PTSD in an SCI population. This supports the cognitive model of PTSD and the development of cognitive therapies for PTSD in this population.
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Recent studies have established the prevalence of PTSD in persons with SCI as varying between 7% and 44%.
“Recent studies have established the prevalence of PTSD in persons with SCI as varying between 7% and 44%.”
From Risk factors for posttraumatic stress disorder in persons with spinal cord injury (2012) · cites this paper as [2]
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ResultAssessing Disruptions in Meaning: Development of the Global Meaning Violation Scale
Park, C. L., Riley, K. E., George, L. S., Gutierrez, I. A., Hale, A. E., Cho, D., & Braun, T. D. (2016) · Cognitive Therapy and Research · doi:10.1007/s10608-016-9794-9 · Cited by 58 · see citing works
“…Inventory (PTCI; Foa et al. 1999) or the World Assumptions Scale (WAS; JanoffBulman 1989), more negative views of the self and the world following exposure to highly stressful events were associated with higher levels of distress (e.g., Agar et al. 2006; Moser et al. 2007; Varra et al. 2008).”
BackgroundPosttraumatic Stress Disorder and Spinal Cord Injury
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“Spinal cord injury, a complex form of trauma that disrupts almost every system of the body and result in paralysis from below the waist or below the neck, was found to be associated with PTSD (Agar et al., 2006).”
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“The PTCI scores obtained in this study are comparable to the ones reported by Agar et al. (2006).”
ResultSelf-citationRisk factors for posttraumatic stress disorder in persons with spinal cord injury
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“For the model predicting PTSS, given our sample size and number of predictors, we had 0.80 power to detect effect sizes of f 2 of 0.21 or higher (0.15 is considered medium and 0.35 is considered large).”
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“PTC include negative cognitions about the world, the self, and self-blame (Agar et al., 2006; Bryant & Guthrie, 2005; Carek et al., 2010).”
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- Authors
- Agar, E., Kennedy, P., & King, N. S.
- Affiliations
- Charing Cross Hospital (GB)
- University of Oxford (GB)
- Venue
- Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Published
- 2006-05-02
- Volume
- 34
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 437-452
- ISSN
- 1352-4658 (ISSN-L)
- 1469-1833
- OpenAlex
- W2167714369
- Cited by
- 69
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 5 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 3 · 2015: 6 · 2014: 2 · 2013: 6 · 2012: 6
- FWCI
- 1.84
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pathology and Forensic Medicine › Spinal Cord Injury Research
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Epidemiology › Traumatic Brain Injury Research
- Keywords
- post-traumatic stress disorder, spinal cord injury, cognitive appraisal, negative thinking, injury severity, social support, predictors of PTSD, cognitive therapy
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