Mitigating Injury Survivors’ PTSD Symptoms by Strengthening Self-Compassion and Trauma Coping Self-Efficacy

Physical injury survivors who experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms need tailored interventions targeting adaptation mechanism resources. During recovery, strengthening survivors’ tenuous self-compassion and belief that they can overcome trauma (i.e., trauma coping self-efficacy) could facilitate adaptation and reduce risk for persistent PTSD symptoms. The present research considered the preliminary plausibility of a conceptual model reasoning that elevated self-compassion might decrease injury survivors’ PTSD symptoms through increased trauma coping self-efficacy. Adult injury survivors, recruited mostly from a Level 1 trauma center, participated in a tailored brief-psychotherapy pilot intervention and completed measures of self-compassion, trauma coping self-efficacy, and PTSD symptom severity. Data fit with the conceptual model was evaluated based on mediation analysis at pretreatment (N = 29) and the degree to which pre-post-treatment improvements in the three focal variables intercorrelated (N = 11). Mediation analysis results were consistent with the putative conceptual model, indicating a negative indirect effect of self-compassion on PTSD symptoms via increased trauma coping self-efficacy. Correlation coefficients among pre-post treatment improvements in these three variables were also qualitatively consistent with the putative model. The present research highlights potential ways self-compassion and trauma coping self-efficacy could mitigate PTSD symptoms, and it provides concrete intervention approaches to leverage individual therapy strategies and group therapy dynamics during survivors’ injury recovery to facilitate self-compassion, trauma coping self-efficacy, and adaptation. To address limitations of the present pilot research and further improve how injury survivors’ needs get met, future studies should employ rigorous longitudinal intervention research designs.