Predicting Social Psychological Well-Being Following Trauma: The Role of Postdisaster Social Support

This longitudinal study assessed both the mobilization and deterioration dynamics of postdisaster social support and aid unfolding within the first 12 months after a natural disaster. These were the predictor variables hypothesized to influence various subsequent manifestations of survivors' social psychological well-being such as perceptions of social support and community cohesion, engagement in interpersonal contacts, and beliefs about mutual helpfulness and benevolence. Data came from a sample of 285 respondents who experienced a severe flood that devastated parts of southwestern Poland in 1997. A series of hierarchical regression analyses that controlled for the influence of sociodemographic factors and direct disaster exposure measures showed that a greater involvement in the instantaneous postdisaster altruistic communities (mainly the amount of social support received) was associated with more favorable appraisals of interpersonal and community relationships assessed 20 months after the flood. Conversely, the indicators of postdisaster social bitterness, operationalized as dissatisfaction with aid and interpersonal and community animosities and disagreements, were predictive of lower levels of subsequent social psychological well-being. Results underscore the relevance of both the social support mobilization and social support deterioration models for trauma theory. These findings also suggest that postdisaster relief and intervention programs should consider helping survivors maintain, or even augment, their perceptions of being supported and their trust in benefits of belonging to a valued social group and community.