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Angus S. McDonald, Graham C.L. Davey, Geoffrey D.R. Bryant
The relative contribution of injury severity, long-term impairment and coping strategies to post-traumatic symptomatology and psychological health was assessed in a sample of accident patients. The physical severity of the injury failed to have direct effects on any of the outcome variables, and had only a minor indirect effect through its association with long-term effects of the injury. Emotion-focused coping was seen to consistently predict all outcome measures, and the degree of intrusive thoughts predicted levels of anxiety and depression. It is suggested that the use of emotion-focused coping inhibits the processing of traumatic events, and that intrusive thoughts influence psychological distress in addition to the direct effects of emotion-focused coping.
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