ArticleAnxiety, stress, and coping2023
Does perceived post-traumatic growth during the COVID-19 pandemic reflect actual positive changes?
Article in Anxiety, stress, and coping, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Social Support, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Growth Among Adolescents During Public Health Emergencies: Mediating Roles of Empathy and Coping Styles.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- The effect of social media and infodemic on mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic: results from the COMET multicentric trial.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND
objectivesPeople commonly report positive changes following stressful experiences (perceived posttraumatic growth; PPTG), yet whether PPTG validly reflects positive changes remains unestablished. DESIGN AND
methodsWe tested the extent to which COVID-19 pandemic-related PPTG relates to positive changes in corresponding psychosocial resources in a national US sample participating in a five wave study (T1-T5), focusing here on T2-T5:
resultsAssociations between change scores and occasion-specific PPTG were sparse, providing limited evidence of PPTG validity. Associations between change scores and stable PPTG tended to be positive and stronger than associations for occasion-specific PPTG. DISCUSSION: Perceptions of growth were largely unrelated to experienced positive changes and thus appear to be largely illusory. However, a personality-like tendency to believe one grows from stressful experiences relates more strongly to actual resource growth. These results suggest that people are not accurate reporters of positive changes they experience and that interventions aimed at promoting post-traumatic growth may be premature.
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Registered trials
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