Relationships between Coping Strategies and the Severity of PTSD in Iranian Veterans of the Iran-Iraq War

The aim of this study was to study the relationships between coping strategies and the severity of PTSD. Subjects were 50 treatment seeking Iranian veterans who had experienced war trauma at least once during their military services. Two instruments were used, including: Ways of Coping Questionnaire (Lazarus and Folkman, 1985) and Structured Interview for PTSD (SIP). Correlation coefficients were computed between various coping strategies and the PTSD severity scores. Results indicated that seeking social support, positive reappraisal, planful-problem solving, and self-controlling strategies were negatively correlated to PTSD severity. Escape-avoidance, distancing, accepting responsibility and confronting coping were positively correlated to the severity of PTSD. Theoretical discussion and the applications of these results are represented.