Roemer L, Litz B T, Orsillo S M, Ehlich P J, Friedman M J
Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts at Boston, Massachusetts 02125, USA.
J Trauma Stress. 1998 Jul;11(3):597-605. doi: 10.1023/A:1024469116047.
Retrospective reports of the frequency of war-zone exposure are commonly used as objective indices in studies investigating the mental health consequences of exposure to such stressors. To explore the temporal stability of these types of reports, we obtained frequency estimates of exposure to war-zone stressors at two time points from 460 U.S. soldiers who had served in the peace-keeping mission in Somalia. On average; soldiers demonstrated a significant increase in their frequency reports from initial (postdeployment) to subsequent (follow-up) assessment. Severity of posttraumatic symptomatology was uniquely associated with this change, indicating a possible systematic bias in which severity of symptoms leads to increased reports of stressor frequency. The implications of these findings for research in the field of traumatic stress are discussed.
对战区暴露频率的回顾性报告通常被用作研究此类应激源对心理健康影响的客观指标。为了探究这类报告的时间稳定性，我们从460名曾在索马里维和任务中服役的美国士兵那里获取了两个时间点的战区应激源暴露频率估计值。平均而言，士兵们从最初（部署后）到后续（随访）评估的频率报告有显著增加。创伤后症状的严重程度与这种变化存在独特关联，这表明可能存在一种系统性偏差，即症状严重程度导致对应激源频率的报告增加。本文讨论了这些发现对创伤应激领域研究的意义。
