A meta-analysis of self-attributions following three types of trauma: Sexual victimization, illness, and injury

Victim self-attributions (e.g., that one caused an event or was responsible for its occurrence) have been discussed frequently in the trauma literature. However, little empirical work has sought to test the extant theoretical models conceptualizing why self-attributions occur. We investigated by meta-analysis the prevalence and predictors of self-attributions following 3 traumatic events-sexual victimization, illness, and severe injury-in an attempt to identify predictors of self-attributions and to examine extant theoretical models. The results supported that self-attribution is not the modal response to trauma. In addition, partial support was found for the extant theoretical models, but no one model could explain the entire pattern of findings. Implications of these results for future empirical and theoretical work are discussed.