Disgust and the development of posttraumatic stress among soldiers deployed to Afghanistan

作者：Engelhard Iris M^*; Olatunji Bunmi O; de Jung Peter J

来源：Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 2011, 25(1): 58-63.

DOI：10.1016/j.janxdis.2010.08.003

• Disgust sensitivity
• Disgust propensity
• Anxiety disorders
• PTSD
• Trauma
• Soldiers
• Longitudinal
• Horror

Although the DSM-IV recognizes that events can traumatize by evoking horror, not just fear, the role of disgust in the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has received little research attention. In a study of soldiers deployed to Afghanistan, we examined whether reports of peritraumatic disgust and trait disgust vulnerability factors (disgust propensity and disgust sensitivity) predict PTSD-symptoms, independently of peritraumatic fear, neuroticism, and anxiety sensitivity. Participants (N = 174) enrolled in this study before deployment, and were retested around 6 months (N = 138:79%) and, again, 15 months (N = 107; 62%) after returning home. The results showed that (1) greater peritraumatic disgust and fear independently predicted PTSD-symptom severity at 6 months, (2) greater disgust propensity predicted more peritraumatic disgust, but not PTSD-symptom severity, and (3) disgust sensitivity moderated the relationship between peritraumatic disgust and PTSD-symptom severity. Implications of these findings for broadening the affective vulnerabilities that may contribute to PTSD will be discussed.

• 出版日期2011-1