Family Functioning and Posttraumatic Growth Among Parents and Youth Following Wildfire Disasters

A conceptual model was used to investigate how demographic characteristics, perceived fire stress, aspects of the recovery environment (life stressors since the disaster, social support), mental health, and coping influences parent and youth reports of family functioning and posttraumatic growth (PTG) following multiple wildfires. Participants included 50 parent-youth dyads (M = 14.5 years) who had been evacuated because of the fire, many of whom had homes that were damaged (60%) or destroyed (30%). For youth, younger age, being female, greater fire stress, more life stressors, and those using more positive reappraisal coping reported greater PTG. For parents, family type and perceived fire stress were positively related to PTG, and positive reappraisal approached significance. For family functioning, only the youth model was significant. Younger age and more life stressors were negatively related, and positive reappraisal coping was positively related, to family functioning. Overall, the results support the important role of positive reappraisal in postdisaster outcomes.