Veteran resilience, meaning-making and posttraumatic growth: A cross-sectional network analysis - 24/04/26
, Donna L. Schuman c, Aazi Ahmadi d, Jose Carbajal eAbstract |
Veterans are routinely exposed to potentially traumatic events, such as training mishaps or combat. In part due to the recent operational tempo of the post-9/11 wars, veterans are experiencing elevated rates of posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, generalized anxiety, and suicide. To mitigate these negative mental health outcomes, scholars have shown increasing interest in prospectively building resilience. Despite this, the measurement structure of resilience has varied across confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) studies. However, another investigative approach is network analysis. This approach treats item-level responses on resilience assessments as nodes (rather than factors) within a regularized partial-correlation network, thereby elucidating the most prominent nodes. In the present study, we used the Response to Stressful Experiences Scale-22 (RSES-22), a measure validated in active-duty and treatment-seeking veteran samples. We used a treatment-seeking sample of 587 veterans, and our analyses included a regularized partial correlation network, strength indices (Z-scored strength and node strength), and a directed acyclic graph (DAG). The strongest edge in the partial correlation network was between Item 4— pray or meditate —and Item 20— lean on my faith in God or a Higher Power. In the DAG, item-level question 14 ( find meaning from the experience ) served as the origin node in the estimated DAG, a pattern that is consistent with, though not demonstrative of, the posttraumatic growth (PTG) process given the cross-sectional nature of the data.. Although our sample is cross-sectional, future research should examine the dynamic role of resilience throughout the course of mental health treatment.
Le texte complet de cet article est disponible en PDF.Keywords : Veteran, Resilience, Network analysis, Posttraumatic growth, Posttraumatic stress disorder
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Vol 10 - N° 2
Article 100686- juin 2026 Retour au numéroBienvenue sur EM-consulte, la référence des professionnels de santé.
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