Management of traumatic events: influence of emotion-centered coping strategies on the occurrence of dissociation and post-traumatic stress disorder

Georges Brousse^1,2, Benjamin Arnaud¹, Jordane Durand Roger¹, Julie Geneste¹, Delphine Bourguet¹, Frederic Zaplana¹, Olivier Blanc¹, Jeannot Schmidt^1,2, Louis Jehel^3
1CHU Clermont Ferrand, Unité Urgences Psychiatriques, 28 place Henri Dunant BP 69, 63003 Clermont-Ferrand Cedex 01, France; ²Univ Clermont 1, UFR médecine, Clermont-Ferrand, F63001 France; ³Hopital Tenon (CHU APHP) 4 rue de la Chine 75020, France, INSERM U669

Abstract: Our aim was to assess the influence of the coping strategies employed for the management of traumatic events on the occurrence of dissociation and traumatic disorders. We carried out a 1-year retrospective study of the cognitive management of a traumatic event in 18 subjects involved in the same road vehicle accident. The diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was made for 33.3% of the participants. The participants with a PTSD diagnosis 1 year after the event used emotion-centered strategies during the event more often than did those with no PTSD, P < 0.02. In the year after the traumatic event, our results show a strong link between the intensity of PTSD and the severity of the post-traumatic symptoms like dissociation (P = 0.032) and the use of emotion-centered strategies (P = 0.004). Moreover, the participants who presented Peritraumatic Dissociative Experiences Questionnaire scores above 15 made greater use of emotion-centered coping strategies than did those who did not show dissociation, P < 0.04. Our results confirm that the cognitive management of traumatic events may play an essential role in the development of a state of post-traumatic stress in the aftermath of a violent event.

Keywords: trauma, coping, emotions, peritraumatic dissociation, post-traumatic stress disorder