ARTICLE INFO

Article Type

Descriptive & Survey Study

Authors

Rezapour Mirsaleh   Y. (* )
Behjat Manesh   A. (1)
Tavallaei   S.V. (2)






(* ) Counseling Department, Education & Psychology Faculty, Ardakan University, Ardakan, Iran
(1) Education Department, Humanities Science Faculty, Ardakan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Ardakan, Iran
(2) Counseling Department, Education & Psychology Faculty, Ardakan University, Ardakan, Iran

Correspondence

Address: Yazd Province, Ardakan City, Ayatollah Khatami Boulvared, Ardakan University, Faculty of Education and Psychology
Phone: +98 (35) 32240991
Fax: +98 (35) 32240991
y.rezapour@ardakan.ac.ir

Article History

Received:  May  19, 2016
Accepted:  September 14, 2016
ePublished:  November 21, 2016

BRIEF TEXT


Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) rises after exposure to a stressful or traumatic event. In Events such as involving in a crime or a violent crash, invasion or war or being witness of such incidents, kidnapping, experience of a life-threatening disease or sexual abuse that a person shows reaction as fear or helplessness in the face of these experiences, a person continuously experience these events and tries to refrain from recalling it [1].

… [2-33]. Veterans’ children’s resilience helps them to maintain their psychological functions better and help them to have better function in facing with life’s problems [34]. …[35-36].

This study aimed to investigate the role of secondary PTSD and resiliency in the performance and motivation of Veterans’ children.

This study is descriptive-analytic, correlational type.

This study was conducted among all the students in the first and second grade of high school in Ardakan and Meybod City whose fathers were veterans with the injury higher than 25% in the academic year 2014-2015 amounting to 300 persons.

187 persons were selected for participating in this study based on available sampling and the limitation in the sampling.

The research tools were Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale, Resilience Scale, The Scale of Academic Motivation and the students’ second semester GPA. All the instruments were administrated individualistically. Secondary Post-Traumatic Stress Scale: This scale was created in 2004 by Bride et al. and includes 17 items that is divided into the subscales of intrusion, avoidance, and arousal. The items of each subscales has been set on the basis of PTSD in DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Fourth Edition of Psychological Disorders). In this scale, using five Likert Scale of one (never) to 5 (very high), the participants are asked to determine that how much each of the items in the questionnaire has happened for them within the last week. This scale has acceptable reliability, convergent, divergent, and construct validity [37]. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.93 for the total score and 0.80, 0.87, and 0.83 for the subscales of nuisance, avoidance, and arousal. High and meaningful correlation was, also, observed among STSS factors [37]. Persian version of this questionnaire has been normalized in Iranian veterans’ wives [38] and the veterans’ children [39]. The construct validity of this scale was confirmed in both studies using confirmatory factor analysis. Also, its content validity was confirmed by experts. This scale has convergent validity with anxiety, stress and depression in the children and spouses of the veterans. Also, the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the total score in the veterans’ wives and children were 0.89 and 0.92 respectively [38, 39]. Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RICS): This questionnaire was prepared by Connor-Davidson in 2003 with a review of research in the domain of resilience. This five-point Likert scale is scored from one (totally incorrect) to 5 (totally correct). The assessment of the psychometric properties of this scale has been carried out in six groups: general population, patients referred to the section of basic skills, outpatients with psychiatric problems, patients with generalized anxiety disorder and two groups of patients with post-traumatic stress. This scale producers believe that this questionnaire is well capable of separating the resilient and non-resilient people in the clinical and non-clinical groups and can be used in the research and clinical settings [40]. The content validity of the Persian version of this scale has been reported. Also, The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of this questionnaire was obtained 0.89. The content and construct validity of the Persian version of this scale has been reported as acceptable. Also, the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the Persian version of this questionnaire has been obtained 0.67. Academic Motivation Scale (AMS): This scale was prepared by Valrand et al. in 1992 to identify the types of academic motivation in the students at university and school level [21]. Academic motivation scale has been designed based on the theory of self-regulation to investigate the three main dimensions of the motivation i.e. intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and no motivation. Face validity of the Persian version of this questionnaire has been confirmed in a study and factor loads related to the items in each subscale have been reported as meaningful one [42].The reliability of the Persian version of this questionnaire was obtained 0.88 using test-retest method, and 0.88 using Cronbach`s alpha [42]. Collected data were analyzed using Pearson correlation and multiple regression analysis.

The mean of disability percent of the students’ fathers was 22.15±11.04 and in the range of 5-70%. The ratio of girls and boys participating in the study was almost equal and the education of the parents were mostly diploma and lower. Most student reported their monthly income at the average level (Table 1). The subscales of intrusion, avoidance and arousal and the total score of secondary PTSD had significant and negative correlation with the motivation, academic performance and resilience. Resilience, also, had significant and positive correlation with the motivation and academic performance. Generally, the correlation of performance and academic motivation with the students’ resilience was more in comparison to their secondary PTSD (p<0.01, Table 2). Of the secondary PTSD subscales, only the role of intrusion in the predicting of academic motivation (p=0.006, β=-0.19) and academic performance (p=0.048, β=-0.14) was significant. Resilience was, also, the predictor of academic motivation (p=0.0001; β=0.48) and academic performance (p=0.0001, β=0.48) and had greater role in the prediction of students’ motivation and academic performance compared to the secondary PTSD.

… [43-45]. The results indicate that the resiliency had greater impact on the motivation and academic performance of the students. This finding was consistent with the results of previous studies [33, 34, 46, and 47].

More research should be done in this area, particularly with more precise methods of correlation, such as structural equation analysis for achieving the causal results.

First, given the limited studies that were carried out in Iran, there was limitation in terms of resources and research background in Iran. Second, in this study, PTSD veterans’ children were not separated from the other veterans’ children. Finally, due to the limitations in the sample size, analyses was not done according to the demographic variables such as socioeconomic status of the family and the percentage of the father’s injury.

Secondary PTSD and resilience have significant role in the predicting of academic motivation and performance in the students whose fathers are veterans.

All the veterans’ children and those who have cooperated in conducting this study are appreciated

Non-declared

All the participants were assured of confidentiality of information.

The funds of this research has been provided by the authors.

TABLES and CHARTS

Show attach file


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