Talya Greene

University of Haifa | haifa · Department of Community Mental Health

Based on research from previous pandemics, studies of critical care survivors, and emerging COVID-19 data, we estimate that up to 30% of survivors of severe COVID will develop PTSD. PTSD is frequently undetected across primary and secondary care settings and the psychological needs of survivors may be overshadowed by a focus on physical recovery. D...

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has had a well-documented negative impact on the mental health and wellbeing of frontline healthcare workers (HCWs). Whilst no research has to date been carried out to explore the challenges experienced by the families of HCWs, some previous research has been conducted with military families, demonstrating that fa...

Background: COVID-19 has had a significant impact on the wellbeing of healthcare workers, with quantitative studies identifying increased stress, anxiety, depression, insomnia, and PTSD in a wide range of settings. Limited qualitative data so far has offered in-depth details concerning what underlies these challenges, but none provide comprehensive...

Research indicates that stress increased across the globe after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Community resilience has been suggested as a central protective factor for stress related to disasters and emergency crises. This study examined the contribution of community resilience reported three years prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pande...

Despite increasing use of Medical Cannabis (MC) among posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) patients, research is lacking on how MC treatment relates to PTSD symptomatology, in particular sleep disturbances. This study examines the time gap between MC use and sleep onset and its association with (1) number of awakenings throughout the night, (2) ear...

Background: Patients are at high risk of suicidal behavior and death by suicide immediately following discharge from inpatient psychiatric hospitals. Furthermore, there is a high prevalence of sleep problems in inpatient settings, which is associated with worse outcomes following hospitalization. However, it is unknown whether poor sleep is associ...

Background : Developmental psychological trauma induces vulnerability to psychosis. However, the mechanisms underlying this association are poorly understood. Impairments in Theory of Mind (ToM) have been observed in adult survivors of developmental trauma and individuals with psychosis. ToM is therefore a candidate mechanism underlying the associa...

Objective Food craving, restrained eating, hunger, and negative emotions may predict and reinforce one another. However, less is known about how they interact together as a complex system in daily life. Therefore, we used a dynamic network approach to examine the associations between food craving, restrained eating, hunger and negative emotions in...

Objective Sensory processing sensitivity (SPS) relates to individuals' sensitivity to stimuli and their emotional responses to adversity. SPS was found to be associated with a variety of stress-related disorders, however, little is known about the relationship between SPS and posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS). The current study aimed to examine...

Research indicates that mental health problems increased across the globe after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there is a need for research examining specific risk factors for mental health problems, while accounting for symptoms before the pandemic. This study examined risk factors for depression and anxiety symptoms among Israeli...

Introduction: Sleep continuity problems are widespread among college students and may be influenced by single-use and co-use of alcohol and cannabis. We examined the within-person associations of alcohol and cannabis use with subsequent sleep experiences in the everyday life of college students. Materials and Methods: A sample of 80 college student...

While peritraumatic negative emotions have been associated with subsequent posttraumatic stress and depression, the predictive role of real-time positive and negative emotional reactions to specific stressors during prolonged stress exposure is still unclear. We chose experience sampling methodology to investigate real-time emotional reactions duri...

Posttraumatic stress disorder assessments typically require individuals to provide an aggregate report on the frequency or severity of symptoms individuals have experienced over a particular time period. Yet retrospective aggregate assessments are susceptible to memory recall and retrieval difficulties. This study examined the correspondence betwee...

This special issue of the European Journal of Psychotraumatology (EJPT) presents the first studies published by EJPT on COVID-19. We present 26 qualitative and quantitative studies assessing the prevalence of trauma-related symptoms and psychopathology within specific vulnerable populations such as health-care workers, students, children, and manag...

While peritraumatic negative emotions have been associated with subsequent posttraumatic stress and depression, the predictive role of real-time emotional reactions to specific stressors during prolonged stress exposure is still unclear, particularly that of positive emotions. The current study uses experience sampling methodology to examine indivi...

Background: Little research has tested associations of pain and MC use after long-term treatment and through methods that have external validity outside experimental settings. The study examined associations of pain, associated painful experiences, and long-term medical cannabis (MC) use in chronic pain (CP) patients using a naturalistic daily diar...

BACKGROUND Patients are at high risk of suicidal behaviour and death by suicide immediately following discharge from an inpatient psychiatric hospital. Furthermore, there is a high prevalence of sleep problems in inpatient settings which is associated with worse outcomes following hospitalisation. However, it is unknown whether poor sleep is associ...

Background Healthcare workers across the world have risen to the demands of treating COVID-19 patients, potentially at significant cost to their own health and wellbeing. There has been increasing recognition of the potential mental health impact of COVID-19 on frontline workers and calls to provide psychosocial support for them. However, little at...

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has placed a significant burden on the mental health and wellbeing of frontline health and social care workers. The need to support frontline staff has been recognised. However, there is to date little research specifically on how best to support the mental health needs of frontline workers, and none on their own ex...

Objectives COVID-19 has altered standard thresholds for identifying anxiety and depression. A brief questionnaire to determine when individuals are at a tipping point for severe anxiety or depression would greatly help decisions about when to seek assessment or treatment. Design Data were collected as part of the Frontline-COVID Study, a cross-sec...

Background: Healthcare workers across the world have risen to the demands of treating COVID-19 patients, potentially at significant cost to their own health and wellbeing. There has been increasing recognition of the potential mental health impact of COVID-19 on frontline workers and calls to provide psychosocial support for them. However, little a...

Background: Studies have shown that working in frontline healthcare roles during epidemics and pandemics was associated with PTSD, depression, anxiety, and other mental health disorders. Objectives: The objectives of this study were to identify demographic, work-related and other predictors for clinically significant PTSD, depression, and anxiety d...

Background The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is having a well-documented impact on the mental health of front-line health and social care workers (HSCWs). However, little attention has been paid to the experiences of, and impact on, the mental health professionals who were rapidly tasked with supporting them. Aims We set out to redr...

Experiencing psychological trauma during childhood and/or adolescence is associated with an increased risk of psychosis in adulthood. However, we lack a clear knowledge of how developmental trauma induces vulnerability to psychotic symptoms. Understanding the psychological processes involved in this association is crucial to the development of prev...

Background: Intensive longitudinal assessments such as experience sampling methodology (ESM)/ecological momentary assessment (EMA) are data collection methods in which participants are prompted to provide data at least once a day over a particular time period on symptoms, emotions, and behaviours, often using mobile technology. In recent years, the...

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has placed a significant burden on the mental health and wellbeing of frontline health and social care workers. The need to support frontline staff has been recognised. However, there is to date little research specifically on how best to support the mental health needs of frontline workers, and none on their own ex...

Background Studies have shown that working in frontline healthcare roles during epidemics and pandemics was associated with PTSD, depression, anxiety, and other mental health disorders. Objectives The objectives of this study were to identify demographic, work-related and other predictors for clinically significant PTSD, depression, and anxiety du...

This study examined the relationship between media use, experiences of media use as having a negative and/or positive impact on coping, peritraumatic distress, anxiety symptoms and resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic. A convenience sample of 902 Israeli adults (mean age = 46.21) completed measures of peritraumatic distress, anxiety symptoms and...

Objective Research indicates that people who experience more intense peritraumatic reactions are at higher risk of subsequently developing PTSD. The study used network analysis to: 1) explore the network structure of peritraumatic distress reactions; 2) identify clusters of peritraumatic distress reactions; and 3) assess whether central items in th...

There is a lack of knowledge regarding real‐time emotional reactivity to high‐intensity stressors, particularly in people with mental illness, a potentially vulnerable population. The current study aimed to examine negative emotional reactions to recurring high‐intensity stressors within a continuous war situation, in people with different psychiat...

Healthcare workers across the world have risen to the demands of treating COVID-19 patients, potentially at significant cost to their own health and wellbeing. There has been increasing recognition of the potential mental health impact of COVID-19 on frontline healthcare workers and growing calls to provide psychosocial support for them. However, l...

Religious leaders are at risk of psychological trauma and moral injury during the COVID-19 pandemic. This article highlights potentially traumatic or morally injurious experiences for religious leaders and provides evidence-based recommendations for mitigating their impact. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Objectives Social media provides an opportunity to engage in social contact and to give and receive help by means of online social networks. Social support following trauma exposure, even in a virtual community, may reduce feelings of helplessness and isolation, and, therefore, reduce posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTS), and increase posttraumatic...

Objective: This study examined whether attributing a cause of a community fire to a human-made vs. natural disaster moderated the association between peritraumatic distress (PD) and posttraumatic stress (PTSD) symptoms, as well as between PD and posttraumatic growth (PTG). Method: Participants lived in Israeli communities affected by wide-scale fir...

Background: Moral Injury (MI) is one of the adverse consequences of combat. Following exposure to potentially morally injurious events (PMIEs)––events perceived as violations of deep moral beliefs by oneself or trusted individuals––a significant minority of veterans could develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. Objective: The c...

This study explored the network structure of Maladaptive Daydreaming (MD), and links between MD and emotional regulation difficulties. Participants (n = 542) completed an online survey on MD and emotional regulation difficulties. Two network models were estimated. In the MD-only network, items clustered in three communities, most items were positiv...

Existing literature indicates a theoretical and empirical relation between engagement in reckless behaviors and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Thus, the DSM‐5 revision of the PTSD nosology added a new “reckless or self‐destructive behavior” (RSDB) symptom (Criterion E2). The current study applied a network analytic approach to examine the it...

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has empirically-established associations with positive emotion dysregulation. Extending existing research, we utilized a network approach to examine relations between PTSD symptom clusters (intrusions, avoidance, negative alterations in cognitions and mood [NACM], alterations in arousal and reactivity [AAR]) and...

Objective: We aimed to assess whether peritraumatic threat experienced during a period of armed conflict predicted subsequent depression symptoms. Method: Ninety-six Israeli civilians provided real-time reports of exposure to rocket warning sirens and subjective sense of threat, twice daily for 30 days, during the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict. Depr...

Background: A substantial proportion of people using cannabis report using it to improve sleep. Yet, little research exists on the associations between the timing of cannabis use and sleep. This study examines the time elapsed between cannabis use and sleep start time and its association with two of the main indicators of sleep continuity: (1) sle...

Background: The empirical literature of network analysis studies of posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) has grown rapidly over the last years. Objective: We aimed to assess the characteristics of these studies, and if possible, the most and least central symptoms and the strongest edges in the networks of PTSS. Method: The present systematic revie...

Objective: Motor vehicle collisions (MVCs) are a common source of traumatic stress, which could lead to the development of posttraumatic stress disorder. However, the natural course of symptom development is still poorly understood. The current study aimed to prospectively examine the expression of traumatic stress symptoms in mild-moderate injure...

Positive memory characteristics relate to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) severity. We utilized a network approach to examine relations between PTSD clusters (intrusions, avoidance, negative alterations in cognitions and mood [NACM], alterations in arousal and reactivity [AAR]) and positive memory characteristics (count, accessibility, valence...

On 6 December 2019 we start the 10th year of the European Journal of Psychotraumatogy (EJPT), a full Open Access journal on psychotrauma. This editorial is part of a special issue celebrating the 10 years anniversary of the journal and acknowledging some of our most impactful articles of the past decade. In this editorial the editors present a dece...

Objectives: The current study examined whether peritraumatic threat predicted posttraumatic growth (PTG), and whether the relationship between peritraumatic threat and PTG was mediated by post-traumatic stress (PTS) symptoms. Design: A prospective experience sampling study. Methods: 96 Israeli civilians provided smartphone reports of their rocket w...

Investigating dynamic associations between specific negative emotions and PTSD symptom clusters may provide novel insights into the ways in which PTSD symptoms interact with, emerge from, or are reinforced by negative emotions. The present study estimated the associations among negative emotions and the four DSM‐5 PTSD symptom clusters (intrusions,...

Flashtalk presented at the 16th ESTSS conference, Rotterdam 14-16 June 2019

Workshop about experience sampling method (ESM)

Co-occurring posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression following traumatic experiences are cumulatively associated with functional impairment. To examine mechanisms for the PTSD-depression comorbidity, we investigated their cluster-level associations. Using data obtained from Amazon's Mechanical Turk platform, 368 trauma-exposed participa...

Background: Previous research shows that between individuals there is a positive association between medically motivated use and cannabis use frequency and quantity. While between-subjects' analyses are useful for understanding shared vulnerabilities, research has so far not examined within-subjects' relationships which are closer to evaluating fu...

DSM-5 substantially revised the PTSD criteria relating to exposure, redrawing symptom clusters and introducing additional symptom criteria, among them a newly defined criterion of persistent distorted blame of self or others. This commentary argues that there are fundamental problems with the current DSM-5 formulation of the blame criterion for PTS...

While peritraumatic dissociation has been identified as a predictor of posttraumatic stress disorder, it may also have some protective aspect. The study uses experience sampling methods to assess acute dissociation reactions during conflict, and to investigate these reactions as predictors of subsequent posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) and post...

Background Conceptualizing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms as a dynamic system of causal elements could provide valuable insights into the way that PTSD develops and is maintained in traumatized individuals. We present the first study to apply a multilevel network model to produce an exploratory empirical conceptualization of dynamic...

We measured 16 different emotions, as well as exposure to rocket warning sirens, during the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict in 182 people with vs. without mental illness. We found that exposure to sirens was associated with an increase in negative emotions and a decrease in positive emotions. Also, people with mental illness do not appear to be more emot...

The mental health effects of 9/11 on children and adolescents have often been viewed through the same lens as the effects on adults. Yet, children differ from adults in multiple ways and have specific vulnerabilities and dependencies that can moderate the impact of exposure to disasters. This chapter provides an overview of the studies that investi...

Slides from her presentation at the ISTSS 33rd annual meeting

Objective: We assessed in vivo symptom courses of early psychological responses during war and investigated the influence of exposure, gender, and a prior diagnosis of severe mental illness (SMI). Method: Participants were 181 highly exposed individuals from the general population and community psychiatric rehabilitation centers. A 30-day twice-...

Countless people around the world live with exposure to continuous traumatic stress (CTS) as a result of violent political conflict. Over the past 15 years, residents of southern Israel have been exposed to rocket fire from Gaza with varying intensity, and their mental health has been the subject of many studies. The purpose of this article was to...

Exposure and sense of threat have been associated with stress symptoms, yet these relationships have not been clarified during the peritraumatic period. We investigated the mediating role of sense of threat in the link between exposure to rocket warning sirens and stress symptoms during wartime, and the effect of severe mental illness (SMI) status...

Background The ways in which traumatic stress symptoms unfold under situations of ongoing threat and trauma exposure are poorly understood. The current study aims to identify traumatic stress symptom trajectories during conflict, as well as potential risk factors. Methods Experience sampling methods were used to study traumatic stress symptoms dur...

Research suggests that posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is common, debilitating and frequently associated with comorbid health conditions, including poor functioning, and increased health care utilization. This article systematically reviewed the empirical literature on PTSD in primary care settings, focusing on prevalence, detection and correl...

Objective: The current study aimed to investigate (a) "secondary" posttraumatic growth (PTG) in wives of former prisoners of war (ex-POWs) and its association to husbands' captivity, husbands' posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and husbands' PTSD trajectories; and (b) the bidirectional relationships over time between wives' posttraumatic stress...

The current study investigated posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and vicarious trauma (VT) symptoms among mental health professionals (MHPs) working in communities exposed to high levels of trauma related to rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip. The study assessed direct and vicarious traumatic exposure. The study also explored the relationship be...

This study prospectively examines the longitudinal course of loneliness, social support, and posttraumatic symptoms (PTS) among Israeli war veterans. Two groups of veterans with and without antecedent combat stress reaction (CSR) were assessed at three points of time during a 20-year period. Veterans with CSR reported higher levels of loneliness co...

This study prospectively assessed the implications of war captivity and former prisoners of war's (ex-POWs) posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and PTSD trajectory on their wives' marital adjustment, adjusting for their secondary traumatization (ST). Results show that marital adjustment of the wives of ex-POWs with PTSD (N = 66) was lower compared...

Secondary traumatization describes the phenomenon whereby those in proximity to trauma survivors develop psychological symptoms similar to those experienced by the direct survivor. The current study examined secondary trauma (ST) and generalized distress symptoms (general psychiatric symptomatology, functional disability, and self-rated health) in...

The prolonged and complex Israeli—Palestinian conflict profoundly affects the health and wellbeing of both Palestinians and Israelis.1 The present escalation between Hamas and Israel follows a well-worn pattern of confrontation. Superior Israeli military force means that Palestinians have more physical casualties. On both sides, however, many civil...

To date, there are no empirical studies assessing the impact of war captivity on persistent dissociation (PD) and the longitudinal relations between captivity stressors, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and PD. The current study included two groups of male Israeli veterans from the 1973 Yom Kippur War: ex-prisoners of war (ex-POWs) and compara...

We aimed to assess the associations between secondary traumatization (ST) and perception of husbands' posttraumatic symptoms (PTSS) and marital adjustment among wives of former prisoners of war (ex-POWs). Wives of Israeli ex-POWs and wives of a matched control group of combat veterans were assessed using self-report measures. Ex-POWs' wives reporte...

The current study aims to (1) assess the long-term impact of war captivity on mortality and various health aspects and (2) evaluate the potential mediating role of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depressive symptoms. Israeli ex-prisoners of war (ex-POWs) (N = 154) and a matched control group of combat veterans (N = 161) were assessed on he...

We investigated the relationships between secondary traumatization, marital adjustment, and self-rated health among wives of former prisoners of war. Participants were Israeli wives of former prisoners of war (N = 116) and a matched control group of wives of combat veterans (N = 56). Wives of former prisoners of war reported worse self-rated health...

This study prospectively examines the longitudinal course of loneliness, social support, and posttraumatic symptoms (PTS) among Israeli war veterans. Two groups of veterans with and without antecedent combat stress reaction (CSR) were assessed at three points of time during a 20-year period. Veterans with CSR reported higher levels of loneliness co...

The aversive impact of combat and combat-induced posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on parenting of young children has been examined in a few studies. Nevertheless, the toll of war captivity on parenting and the long-term relations between posttraumatic symptoms and paternal parenting of adult children remains unknown. This longitudinal study exa...