By Dr Julius Samson, Abubakar Yawa Wakeh & Prof. A. I. Mohammed
Abstract
This study adopted a correlational research design to examine the relationship between Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Adjustment of Senior Secondary School Students. The population of the study was nine hundred and eighty seven (987) secondary school students with posttraumatic symptoms in Godo-Godo and Kafanchan Zonal Educational Inspectorate Divisions, Kaduna state, Nigeria. The sample of the study was 272 SSII Students with symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder drawn from twenty (20) Senior Secondary Schools. Data was collected using posttraumatic stress disorder inventory (PTSDI), social adjustment inventory (SAI), Emotional Adjustment Inventory (EAI) and Academic Adjustment Inventory (AAI). The PSDI was faced and content validated, and had reliability of .856. the SAI, EAI and AAI had reliability coefficients of .898, .892 and .779 respectively. Pearson product moment correlation statistics was used to test the three hypotheses at 0.05 alpha level of significance. The findings show that relationships exist between posttraumatic stress disorder and social adjustment, emotional adjustment, and academic adjustment as components of adjustment among secondary school students. It was recommended, among others, that psychologists and counsellors should be encouraged to help students with posttraumatic stress disorder by providing functional psychological testing and counselling centres in the areas.