Investigating corroboration of self-perceived posttraumatic growth among Sri Lankan Tamil survivors of ethnopolitical warfare through trait, domain, and profile agreement approaches

Though research on assessing posttraumatic growth has been severely critiqued, some evidence suggests close others can observe and report changes in individuals following traumatic life events and are sensitive to idiosyncratic ways in which changes manifest. We extended these findings by investigating corroboration of self-perceived posttraumatic growth (PTG) and depreciation (PTD) as measured by the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory–42 (PTGI-42) among Sri Lankan Tamil war survivors (n = 200). Informants slightly corroborated overall levels of PTG and PTD, while a more nuanced profile analysis procedure revealed overall—but not distinctive—profile agreement. This suggests self–other agreement is modest and may partly reflect shared narratives and collective cultural understandings about how people change after trauma. Results demonstrate further that informants were not sensitive to idiosyncratic ways in which target individuals had changed. Together, the lack of validity evidence suggests that the PTGI-42 may be inadequate in some cross-cultural contexts as a measure of nuanced posttraumatic change (i.e., as a measure of specific changes in the five theorized domains of growth and depreciation). Future work should emphasize culture and context-sensitive measurement of posttraumatic change, particularly focusing on methods other than retrospective self-reports, such as prospective longitudinal designs