Investigation of the moderating role of intolerance of uncertainty in the relationship between childhood trauma and post traumatic stress symptoms in university students

Two seperate studies were conducted in this thesis. First, Posttraumatic Stress Diagnostic Scale- 5 was adapted to Turkish and it's psychometric properties were investigated. Second, the moderating role of intolerance of uncertainty was examined in the relationship between childhood trauma and post traumatic stress symptoms when worry and anxiety sensitivity was kept constant. In the scale adaptation study, data collected online from 530 participants who were exposed to some traumatic event in their life using Posttraumatic Stress Diagnostic Scale-5, PTSD Checklist for DSM-5, Impact of Event Scale-Revised, State-Trait Anxiety Scale, Beck Depression Inventory. Principal axis factoring resulted in four factors: "intrusion", "avoidance", "changes in mood and cognition" and "arousal and hyperreactivity". Cronbach alpha coefficients for the whole scale is .84 and ranged between .72 and .89 for the factors. Correlation coefficients for test- retest reliability changed between .67 and .83. Proof for construct validity gathered by calculating Steiger's Z for the correlation coefficients between scales measuring convergent and discriminant validity. Lastly ROC analysis was conducted and the optimal cut-off point was determined to be 25.5 with .79 specificity and .95 sensitivity. In the second study, data was collected online from 475 university students using Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, Posttraumatic Stress Diagnostic Scale-5, Intolerance of Unceertainty Scale-12, Penn State Worry Questionnaire and Anxiety Sensitivty Index-3. Predictive roles of the variables was investigated using hierarchical regression analyses. Results showed that "prospective uncertainty" predicted "intrusion" subscale while "inhibitory uncertainty" predicted "changes in mood and cognition" and "arousal and hyperreactivity" subscales. "Avoidance" was not predicted by either. Lastly, moderation analyses were conducted to examine the role of intolerance of uncertainty in the relationship between childhood trauma and post traumatic stress symptoms and the model was found significant. Keywords TSSTO-5, Posttraumatic stress symptoms, intolerance of uncertainty, childhood trauma, worry, anxiety sensitivity