Cargando…

Is mindfulness protective against PTSD? A neurocognitive study of 25 Tsunami disaster survivors

BACKGROUND: It has been suggested that mindfulness is a protective factor that buffers individuals from experiencing severe posttraumatic stress following exposure to a trauma. We aimed to examine the association between dispositional (trait) mindfulness and posttraumatic stress in individuals who h...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Hagen, Christina, Lien, Lars, Hauff, Edvard, Heir, Trond
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4952228/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27435165
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12952-016-0056-x
_version_ 1782443781397676032
author Hagen, Christina
Lien, Lars
Hauff, Edvard
Heir, Trond
author_facet Hagen, Christina
Lien, Lars
Hauff, Edvard
Heir, Trond
author_sort Hagen, Christina
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: It has been suggested that mindfulness is a protective factor that buffers individuals from experiencing severe posttraumatic stress following exposure to a trauma. We aimed to examine the association between dispositional (trait) mindfulness and posttraumatic stress in individuals who had been exposed to the trauma of a natural disaster. METHOD: A disaster group (n = 25) consisting of Norwegian tourists who survived the 2004 South East Asian tsunami at a location with high mortality rates was recruited. Dispositional mindfulness and posttraumatic stress were measured with the Five-Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire and the Impact of Event Scale-Revised Version, respectively. RESULTS: There was no significant association between mindfulness and posttraumatic stress. Moreover, there were no significant associations between posttraumatic stress and the mindfulness sub-facets of observing, acting with awareness, non-judging, and non-reacting. However, there was a significant positive correlation between the descriptive factor of mindfulness and IES-R total. There were no significant linear correlations between the five sub-facets of mindfulness and the three categories of posttraumatic symptoms, intrusion, avoidance and hyper-arousal. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings do not indicate a relationship between dispositional mindfulness and posttraumatic stress levels after exposure to a trauma, except for the descriptive sub-facet of mindfulness and here the correlation is positive and not negative as would be expected if mindfulness is a protective factor for posttraumatic stress. Future studies should investigate the relationship between mindfulness and posttraumatic stress while accounting for factors such as trauma history, type of trauma, and individual differences in traumatic stress reactions.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-4952228
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2016
publisher BioMed Central
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-49522282016-07-21 Is mindfulness protective against PTSD? A neurocognitive study of 25 Tsunami disaster survivors Hagen, Christina Lien, Lars Hauff, Edvard Heir, Trond J Negat Results Biomed Research BACKGROUND: It has been suggested that mindfulness is a protective factor that buffers individuals from experiencing severe posttraumatic stress following exposure to a trauma. We aimed to examine the association between dispositional (trait) mindfulness and posttraumatic stress in individuals who had been exposed to the trauma of a natural disaster. METHOD: A disaster group (n = 25) consisting of Norwegian tourists who survived the 2004 South East Asian tsunami at a location with high mortality rates was recruited. Dispositional mindfulness and posttraumatic stress were measured with the Five-Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire and the Impact of Event Scale-Revised Version, respectively. RESULTS: There was no significant association between mindfulness and posttraumatic stress. Moreover, there were no significant associations between posttraumatic stress and the mindfulness sub-facets of observing, acting with awareness, non-judging, and non-reacting. However, there was a significant positive correlation between the descriptive factor of mindfulness and IES-R total. There were no significant linear correlations between the five sub-facets of mindfulness and the three categories of posttraumatic symptoms, intrusion, avoidance and hyper-arousal. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings do not indicate a relationship between dispositional mindfulness and posttraumatic stress levels after exposure to a trauma, except for the descriptive sub-facet of mindfulness and here the correlation is positive and not negative as would be expected if mindfulness is a protective factor for posttraumatic stress. Future studies should investigate the relationship between mindfulness and posttraumatic stress while accounting for factors such as trauma history, type of trauma, and individual differences in traumatic stress reactions. BioMed Central 2016-07-20 /pmc/articles/PMC4952228/ /pubmed/27435165 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12952-016-0056-x Text en © The Author(s). 2016 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research
Hagen, Christina
Lien, Lars
Hauff, Edvard
Heir, Trond
Is mindfulness protective against PTSD? A neurocognitive study of 25 Tsunami disaster survivors
title Is mindfulness protective against PTSD? A neurocognitive study of 25 Tsunami disaster survivors
title_full Is mindfulness protective against PTSD? A neurocognitive study of 25 Tsunami disaster survivors
title_fullStr Is mindfulness protective against PTSD? A neurocognitive study of 25 Tsunami disaster survivors
title_full_unstemmed Is mindfulness protective against PTSD? A neurocognitive study of 25 Tsunami disaster survivors
title_short Is mindfulness protective against PTSD? A neurocognitive study of 25 Tsunami disaster survivors
title_sort is mindfulness protective against ptsd? a neurocognitive study of 25 tsunami disaster survivors
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4952228/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27435165
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12952-016-0056-x
work_keys_str_mv AT hagenchristina ismindfulnessprotectiveagainstptsdaneurocognitivestudyof25tsunamidisastersurvivors
AT lienlars ismindfulnessprotectiveagainstptsdaneurocognitivestudyof25tsunamidisastersurvivors
AT hauffedvard ismindfulnessprotectiveagainstptsdaneurocognitivestudyof25tsunamidisastersurvivors
AT heirtrond ismindfulnessprotectiveagainstptsdaneurocognitivestudyof25tsunamidisastersurvivors