Mediating effects of forgiveness and emotion-focused coping on post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms caused by physical injury and perceived threat

IntroductionThe purpose of this study was to develop and test a model (including cognitive appraisal, coping strategy, and forgiveness variables) predicting post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in 127 adults who were involved in traffic accidents. MethodsParticipants were recruited from the inpatient and outpatient departments of three urban hospitals in South Korea. We utilized the path analysis to identify the best fitting model to our data. ResultsPath analysis showed that the baseline model compared with an alternative model was more appropriate for our data. Our results indicated that the severity of physical injury was directly related to the participants' perceived threat. The perceived threat had direct and indirect effects on PTSD symptoms through forgiveness and emotion-focused coping strategies. One of the significant findings was that victims' forgiveness of the person at fault for the accident reduced their PTSD symptoms. The severity of physical injury was not related directly to PTSD symptoms. DiscussionOur study demonstrates that victim's forgiveness of the person at fault in a traumatic situation can be useful in helping their recovery after trauma and the forgiveness process may be applied to traffic accident situations as well as other types of interpersonal trauma.