@article{ref1,
title="Potentially traumatic events have negative and positive effects on loneliness, depending on PTSD-symptom levels: evidence from a population-based prospective comparative study",
journal="Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology",
year="2018",
author="van der Velden, Peter G. and Pijnappel, Bas and van der Meulen, Erik",
volume="53",
number="2",
pages="195-206",
abstract="PURPOSE: Examine to what extent adults affected by recent potentially traumatic events (PTE) with different PTSD-symptom levels are more at risk for post-event loneliness than non-affected adults are in the same study period. <br><br>METHODS: We extracted data from the Dutch longitudinal LISS panel to measure pre-event loneliness (2011) and post-event loneliness (2013 and 2014), pre-event mental health problems (2011), PTE and PTSD symptoms (2012). This panel is based on a traditional random sample drawn from the population register by Statistics Netherlands. <br><br>RESULTS: Results of the multinomial logistic regression analyses showed that affected adults with high levels of PTSD symptoms were more at risk for high levels of post-event loneliness than affected adults with very low PTSD-symptom levels and non-affected adults, while controlling for pre-event loneliness, pre-event mental health problems and demographics. However, affected adults with very low levels of PTSD symptoms compared to non-affected adults were less at risk for medium and high levels of post-event loneliness while controlling for the same variables. Yet, pre-event loneliness appeared to be the strongest independent predictor of loneliness at later stages: more than 80% with high pre-event levels had high post-event levels at both follow-ups. <br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Remarkably, potentially traumatic events have depending on PTSD-symptom levels both negative and positive effects on post-event loneliness in favor of affected adults with very low PTSD symptoms levels. However, post-event levels at later stages are predominantly determined by pre-event loneliness levels.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0933-7954",
doi="10.1007/s00127-017-1476-8",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00127-017-1476-8"
}