Posttraumatic stress and symptom improvement in Norwegian tourists exposed to the 2004 tsunami – a longitudinal study

Table 3 Multiple linear regression - predictors of symptom improvement (IES-R ¹ score) from 6 months postdisaster to 24 months postdisaster, N = 674

	Step 1 Background			Step 2 + IES-R (T1)			Step 3 + personality factors			Step 4 + post-disaster factors
	β²	t	p-value	β²	t	p-value	β²	t	p-value	β²	t	p-value³
Female	0.04	0.96	0.338	−0.02	−0.37	0.711	−0.01	−0.09	0.925	−0.01	−0.15	0.884
Age at time of tsunami (years)	−0.01	−0.29	0.772	<−0.01	−0.13	0.901	−0.05	−1.21	0.228	−0.04	−1.04	0.297
High educational level	0.06	1.48	0.140	0.10	2.69	0.007	0.06	1.40	0.161	0.08	1.96	0.051
Unemployed (at T1)	0.05	1.09	0.275	−0.04	−1.05	0.292	−0.03	−0.88	0.379	−0.03	−0.75	0.454
Living alone (at T1)	−0.01	−0.26	0.796	−0.01	−0.23	0.819	−0.01	−3.79	0.705	0.02	0.42	0.678
Pre-tsunami mental health problems	−0.03	−0.81	0.421	−0.05	−1.23	0.218	0.05	1.25	0.213	0.08	1.94	0.053
IES-R score at T1				0.39	9.83	<0.001	0.51	12.5	<0.001	0.54	12.6	<0.001
Extraversion (BFI-I)							−0.04	−0.81	0.420	−0.03	−0.60	0.550
Agreeableness (BFI-II)							−0.01	−0.12	0.907	−0.01	−0.24	0.811
Conscientiousness (BFI-III)							0.05	1.10	0.274	0.03	0.75	0.454
Emotional stability (BFI-IV)							0.33	6.43	<0.001	0.32	6.06	<0.001
Openness (BFI-V)							0.03	0.67	0.505	0.02	0.44	0.657
Social support										0.01	0.28	0.780
Referred to a mental health specialist										−0.12	−2.17	0.002
Experienced ≥2 adverse life events last 12 months at T2										−0.08	−1.93	0.054

¹Impact of Event Scale Revised.
²Standardized partial regression coefficient, indicate the effect of each independent variable on the dependent variable controlled for all the other independent variables in the regression model.
³P-values <0.05 are highlighted with bold script in the final step.

ISSN: 1471-244X