I’m About to Explode, I’m About to Strangle: Emotional Experiences of Turkish Veterans and Their Spouses Diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

ABSTRACT

Introduction

The aim of this study is to examine in depth the experiences of Turkish veterans diagnosed with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and their spouses in the dimension of affective development in the light of their trauma experiences with a qualitative design and phenomenological approach.

Methods

The study group of the research consisted of 21 veterans diagnosed with PTSD and accepted as veterans, and the spouses of the 21 veterans. The data of the study were collected through in-depth interviews with the participants used a semi-structured interview form (Appendıx). Data analyses were performed used the MAXQDA 2020 software.

Results

Study, the main themes determined as pretraumatic positive emotions and posttraumatic negative emotions. There were 4 themes under negative emotions after trauma and 24 sub-themes under 4 themes.

Discussion and conclusion

As a result of the study, it was understood that trauma experience and PTSD affect the affective development dimension of veterans and their spouses at different levels, and these effects have negative elements. According to these findings, it was determined that veterans and their spouses need psychosocial services that address the affective development dimension.

KEYWORDS:

• Trauma
• Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
• Emotional development dimension

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, upon reasonable request. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1auN9VfaZmfQ84LOcWX7GRe-lqkZaTYn8?usp=sharing

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.