Predicting post-traumatic growth among a sample of Maltese tertiary students

Abstract

Background: Increasingly, research is indicating that individuals do report psychological growth after experiencing trauma, and not only its adverse effects.

Method: In this cross-sectional correlational study among university students, we investigated their perceived stress, past traumas, subjective well-being, spirituality, positive and negative affect, and personality, together with demographic correlates.

Results: Post-traumatic growth correlated with personality, spirituality, well-being and positive affect. Results from the hierarchical multiple regression analysis suggested a direct link between PTG and subjective well-being, positive affect, spirituality and personality, but no such link with negative affect.

Conclusion: Personality featured prominently in predicting almost half of the variance of posttraumatic growth even after controlling for key variables. The psycho-social implications of these results were discussed.