An examination of metacognitive model of posttraumatic stress disorder on university students

The main purpose of the present study is to test the metacognitive model for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and to examine the mediational role of the components (rumination, worry, and thought control strategies) of the cognitive attention syndrome on the relationship between metacognitive factors and PTSD symptoms. The other purpose of the study is to examine the relative contributions of the metacognitive factors and post-traumatic cognitions to the prediction of different PTSD symptom categories. For these purposes, 425 undergraduate and graduate students filled out the sociodemographic form, DSM-5 Post-Traumatic Stress Symptom Scale, Repetitive Thinking Questionnaire, Metacognitions Questionnaire-30, Thought Control Questionnaire, Brief Measure of Worry Severity Scale and Post-Traumatic Cognitions Inventory. Using SPSS 23.0, descriptive statistics for the sample characteristics and information about the traumatic life events, correlational analyses for the relationship among variables, and hierarchical regression analyses for determining the contribution of cognitions and metacognitive factors to the variance in PTSD symptomatology were conducted. Mediation analyses were run via PROCESS MACRO 3.3 using Parallel Multiple Mediation Analysis model. According to the results of the study, worry, rumination and self-punishment as a thought control strategy fully mediated the relationship between metacognitive beliefs and post-traumatic stress symptoms. Moreover, negative metacognitive beliefs predicted the variance in avoidance and hyperarousal symptom classes of PTSD above and beyond that of explained by post-traumatic cognitions while controlling for psychiatric diagnosis.