Correlates of post-traumatic growth after the 2023 Türkiye earthquake: the role of posttraumatic stress symptoms, prolonged grief, and world assumptions

Objective This study aimed to examine the correlates of post-traumatic growth among survivors of the 2023 Türkiye earthquake, with a specific focus on post-traumatic stress symptoms, prolonged grief symptoms, and world assumptions.Method A total of 372 earthquake survivors (55.4% female; Mean age = 37.15) residing in container cities in Hatay participated in the study. Participants completed self-report measures assessing post-traumatic stress symptoms, prolonged grief symptoms, world assumptions, and post-traumatic growth. Pearson correlation and hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine associations among study variables and to identify correlators of post-traumatic growth.Results Higher post-traumatic stress symptoms and more positive world assumptions were significantly associated with post-traumatic growth. In contrast, prolonged grief symptoms and sociodemographic variables (age, gender, education) were not significant correlates in the final model. The final hierarchical regression model accounted for approximately 20% of the variance in post-traumatic growth.Conclusion The findings highlight the associations between psychological distress and growth in earthquake survivors. Post-traumatic stress symptoms may contribute to growth through cognitive and emotional processing, while world assumptions play a role in facilitating recovery. These results highlight the importance of targeting cognitive frameworks and trauma-related processing in post-disaster interventions to foster resilience and well-being.