| Abstract [eng] |
Psychotraumatological theories emphasise that traumatic events can significantly change a person's beliefs about themselves, others and the world, which can affect their psychological state after trauma. Posttraumatic beliefs may play a role in the development and maintenance of post-traumatic stress disorder, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and other mental health disorders. The aim of this study was to analyse the relationship between post-traumatic beliefs, complex post-traumatic stress and depressive symptoms. The study involved 108 participants (mean age: 38,51 years; SD=11,77) who had experienced at least one traumatic event in their lives. The vast majority of the participants (86.1%) were female; the majority had a university degree (67.6%) and were employed (61.1%). The International Traumatic Experiences Questionnaire (ITEM; Hyland et al., 2021) was used to assess whether a person had experienced traumatic life events, the International Trauma Questionnaire (ITQ; Cloitre et al, 2018); the International Depression Questionnaire (IDQ; Shevlin et al., 2023) was used for depression risk assessment; and post-traumatic beliefs were assessed using a shorter version of the Posttraumatic Beliefs Questionnaire-9 (PTCI-9; Wells et al., 2019). Analysis of the results showed that 20% of the participants were in the PTSD risk group, 47% in the CPTSD risk group, and 45% in the depressive episode risk group. Posttraumatic beliefs, especially negative self-image, were significantly associated with the analysed mental health difficulties, especially with symptoms of CPTSD and depression. Posttraumatic beliefs related to negative self-view positively predicted the risk of CPTSD and negatively predicted the risk of PTSD, compared to the non-risk group The results reveal the importance of posttraumatic beliefs in the development of CPTSD and depressive symptoms and suggest that changing these beliefs may have implications for treatment. |
