Cultural psychological factors in posttraumatic symptom development and expression: a study protocol

Introduction: Cultural factors were shown to be particularly relevant for the development and expression of posttraumatic stress. Recently, the concept of cultural scripts of trauma has been introduced, which proposes that trauma sequelae elements may be sequentially linked and specifically associated with cultural factors. Furthermore, a cascade model is proposed, including trauma exposure, demographic characteristics, cultural affiliation, and trauma-related value orientations as influencing factors of posttraumatic development. The purpose of this Network Project is to investigate cultural psychological factors that contribute to the expression of posttraumatic stress.