Morally injurious experiences and meaning in Salvadorian teachers exposed to violence.

Helping professionals working to alleviate the effects of violence and injustice can confront morally injurious experiences (MIE) that violate deeply held moral values/beliefs, placing them at risk for burnout and trauma-related problems (e.g., posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD]). Focusing on 257 teachers from educational departments throughout El Salvador, we incorporated structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine (1) whether exposure to MIEs for this population (e.g., betrayal, witnessing harm to an innocent student) are directly linked with higher PTSD symptomatology and work-related burnout and (2) whether MIEs contribute to these outcomes via meaning made of trauma. SEM results revealed that MIEs were in fact uniquely linked with PTSD symptoms and burnout, above and beyond rates of direct victimization and demographic factors. In addition, greater MIEs were indirectly linked with study outcomes via the extent to which teachers were able to make meaning of their identified stressors. These findings support the importance of screening for MIEs among helping professionals and also suggest that meaning making could serve as a central mediating factor for how MIEs contribute to trauma-related problems among persons working to promote peace and justice in the world.

Event centrality and posttraumatic outcomes in the context of pervasive violence: a study of teachers in El Salvador.

It is well established that the importance assigned to a trauma can affect one's recovery and psychological health in numerous ways. Event centrality is an increasingly popular construct that captures the tendency among survivors to reevaluate and possibly accommodate their worldviews posttrauma. The centrality given to trauma appears to serve as a "double-edged sword" in that this construct might factor prominently in both posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and posttraumatic growth (PTG). Focusing on 257 violence-exposed teachers from educational departments throughout El Salvador, we examined whether the centrality assigned by the teachers to stressful life events uniquely predicted both PTSD symptomatology and PTG. Results revealed that event centrality was positively related to both PTSD and PTG, even when controlling for demographic factors, violence exposure, and depression. In addition, PTSD symptomatology and PTG were not associated with one another in this sample. In summary, these findings support the role of event centrality as a contributing factor for PTSD and PTG among persons exposed to pervasive trauma.