The Influence of Centrality of Event on Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms and Posttraumatic Growth in (Under)Gradute Students: Moderated Mediation Effect of Core Belief Challenge and Self-Compassion

Abstract

Objectives This study aimed to comprehensively examine the mediating effect of core belief disruption and the moderating effect of self-compassion in the pathway through which event centrality affects posttraumatic stress symptoms and posttraumatic growth. Methods To investigate the model of this study, self-report survey data from 372 (under)graduate students living in metropolitan area were analyzed. The self-report questionnaires used in this study were as follows: Trauma Events Checklist, Centrality of Event Scale-Korean(CES-K), Korean Version of Core Belief Inventory(K-CBI), The Korean Version of Impact of Event Scale-Revised(IES-R-K), Korean version of Self-Comapssion Sclae(K-SCS). Descriptive statistical analysis, correlation analysis, mediating effect analysis, moderating effect analysis, and moderated mediation effect analysis were performed using IBM SPSS Statistics 21.0 and PROCESS macro. Results Core belief challenge indirectly mediated in the effect of centrality of event on posttraumatic stress symp-toms and directly on posttraumatic growth. As a result of the moderating effect test, the effect of core belief chal-lenge on posttraumatic growth was different according to the level of self-compassion. Also, core belief challenge mediated the relationship between centrality of event and posttraumatic growth, and self-compassion moderated it. Conclusions These results suggest that self-compassion can work as a facilitator in the path of centrality of event to posttraumatic growth through core belief challenge. Finally, clinical implications and limitations of the study were discussed.