Attributions, Coping, and Exposure as Predictors of Long-term Posttraumatic Distress in Tornado-Exposed Children

Previous research has implicated a number of factors in why a child might or might not develop a negative reaction to a traumatic situation. The current study was designed to examine multiple factors and their effect on the long-term distress in children 8–12 years old who were exposed to a devastating tornado. The factors of initial exposure to the tornado, attributions about the tornado, and coping style were examined using multiple regression analyses, the number and types of attributions a child makes were found to explain the most amount of variance in long-term distress.