Modeling Structural Relationships between Trauma experience and Peritraumatic dissociation in People with Earthquake Trauma Experience: The Mediating Role of experiential avoidance

Earthquake trauma has a wide range of psychological consequences in the affected areas. In addition, the role of Peritraumatic dissociation - as one of the consequences of trauma and the shaping factor of psychological problems - is still unknown. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to Modeling Structural Relationships between Trauma experience and Peritraumatic dissociation with the mediation of experiential avoidance.

The research method was correlation using structural equation analysis. The statistical population of the study included people with experience of earthquake trauma living in Kermanshah region (Sarpol Zahab and Salas Babajani cities), among whom 323 people were selected by taking into account the exclusion and inclusion criteria as convenience sampling. Research tools include: Traumatic Exposure Severity Scale (TESS), Peritraumatic Dissociative Experiences Questionnaire (PDEQ) and Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (AAQ-II). For data analysis, the Structural equation method was used in SPSS (version 24) and LISREL.

The results showed that the tested model has a good fit. Also, the results of the correlation matrix showed that the relationship between the intensity of trauma experience with peritraumatic dissociation (0.17) and experiential avoidance (0.20) is significant at the 0.01 level, and the relationship between experiential avoidance and peritraumatic dissociation is 0.23, which is significant at the 0.01 level. In addition, the results of the direct and indirect effect of the variables in the model showed that the direct path of the intensity of trauma experience variable to the peritraumatic dissociation variable is not significant (t = 1.729, β = 0.17), the direct path of the experiential avoidance variable to the peritraumatic dissociation variable is significant (β=0.151, t=2.466) and the direct path of the trauma experience variable to the experiential avoidance variable is significant (t=3.063, β=0.315 β). Also, the indirect effect of the trauma experience variable on the peritraumatic dissociation variable through experiential avoidance is significant (b=0.096, p<0.05).

 Considering experiential avoidance as a mediator of the relationship between the severity of trauma experience (earthquake) and peritraumatic dissociation, can help to clarify and further explain the role of peritraumatic dissociation - as a mechanism that forms many psychological problems.