Posttraumatic stress disorder due to criminal victimization

27 violent crime victims a ere examined with regard to the occurrence of symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder about two years after victimization. The results indicate that many subjects still suffered from severe symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder. Additional analyses revealed a connection between symptoms and age at the time of victimization, sense of coherence, coping processes, and perceived social support. Using regression analyses the shared variance of these variables largely accounts for the observed variance of the symptoms. This finding as well as considerations on the causality of the correlations are discussed. The preventive and therapeutical relevance of the results is pointed our.