TPC Journal V7, Issue 4 - FULL ISSUE

344 The Professional Counselor | Volume 7, Issue 4 responses that are consistent with the majority narrative. If possible, future research could be done with more privacy and not in a group format. On the other hand, this mode of data supports the recommendation that future work take a qualitative approach and identify participants’ perceptions about growth, religious commitment, and optimism. It is possible that even though reliability analyses supported the reliability of these instruments, participants’ opinions without the prompts in such surveys could have shed a new light onto what they perceived to be growth and optimism. It would be enlightening to conduct a comparative study to examine those who are still living outside Liberia (e.g., in the United States) and those living within Liberia to explore whether optimism and religious commitment before or after the war played a part in PTG, depending on where a person currently resides. This comparative study could identify differences in both religious commitment and optimism scores between gender and family status, depending on current residence. Finally, the comparative study may identify current post-trauma (disorder and growth) scores and how these scores reflect outlook on life. In sum, the hypothesis that between 10–50% of participants will meet the diagnostic criteria for PTSD was supported; 79.1% of participants met the diagnostic criteria for PTSD. Furthermore, the hypothesis that both males and females will exhibit co-occurring PTSD and PTG was partially supported. Even though there were no differences in PTSD scores between gender, females reported higher PTG scores than their male counterparts. The third hypothesis that those who report high optimism will have higher PTG scores was supported. Finally, the model also supported the hypothesis that people who reported higher religious commitment scores will have higher PTG scores, as well as the hypothesis that optimism, PTSD, and religious commitment could all predict PTG. Most of the instruments used were reliable enough to aver that the measurement of the constructs is cross-cultural. Conflict of Interest and Funding Disclosure Data collected in this study was part of a dissertation study. The dissertation was awarded the 2016 Dissertation Excellence Award by the National Board for Certified Counselors. References Acquaye, H. E., Sivo, S. A., & Jones, K. D. (in press). Religious commitment’s moderating effect on refugee trauma and growth. Counseling and Values . Affleck, G., & Tennen, H. (1996). Construing benefits from adversity: Adaptational significance and dispositional underpinnings. Journal of Personality , 64 , 899–922. doi:10.1111 /j.1467-6494.1996.tb00948.xx American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Washington, DC: Author. Anderson, J. C., & Gerbing, D. W. (1988). Structural equation modeling in practice: A review and recommended two-step approach. Psychological Bulletin , 103 , 411–423. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2016.09.042 Antonovsky, A. (1987). Unravelling the mystery of health: How people manage stress and stay well . San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Antonovsky, A. (1993). The structure and properties of the Sense of Coherence scale. Social Science & Medicine , 36 , 725–733. doi:10.1016/0277-9536(93)90033-Z