Predicting Protective Factors of Physical and Mental Health for Survivors of Residential Fire

Symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and physical health outcomes are three of the most common health outcomes evaluated for trauma survivors and several lines of empirical and meta-analytic research have demonstrated many risk factors for PTSD. Further, examining trauma survivors’ responses through a resilience orientation has grown increasingly popular over the past decade. However, the resilience orientation has little support among adult trauma survivor populations and none when evaluating physical health as part of an integrated health index (combining PTSD, depression, and physical health outcomes). Through examination of residential fire survivors, the current project evaluates the predictive validity of protective factors of PTSD as they relate to this integrated health index. Participants were assessed via self-report and semi-structured interviews approximately 4 months post-fire. Through evaluation of the integrated health index, peritraumatic emotionality and resource loss were found to significantly predict a resilient group of residential fire survivors 4 months post-fire. The present study suggests lower sustained resource loss and lower peritraumatic emotionality are significant protective factors for resiliency from residential fire.