Social support has long been associated with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but there is no consistent evidence on the strength and direction of this relationship. Whereas the social causation model claims that social support buffers against PTSD, the social selection model states that PTSD reduces social support resources. As the first meta-analysis of the prospective relationships between social support and PTSD, this study synthesized the available longitudinal data (75 samples including 32,402 participants) on these two constructs with a random-effects model. In total, three hundred and fifty-five effect sizes (including cross-sectional, prospective and cross-lagged coefficients) were included in the meta-analysis. With prior levels of the relevant outcomes controlled for, results showed that social support and PTSD reciprocally predicted each other over time with similar effect sizes: Social support predicted PTSD with β = −0.10; PTSD predicted social support with β = −0.09. Moderator analyses suggested that the effects held across most sample characteristics and research designs except for several moderators (gender, time lag, publication year, source of support). These findings provided strong evidence for both the social causation and social selection models, suggesting that the link between social support and PTSD is symmetrically reciprocal and robust.

长期以来，社会支持与创伤后应激障碍 (PTSD) 相关，但没有一致的证据表明这种关系的强度和方向。社会因果模型声称社会支持可以缓冲 PTSD，而社会选择模型则表明 PTSD 减少了社会支持资源。作为对社会支持与 PTSD 之间前瞻性关系的首次荟萃分析，本研究使用随机效应模型综合了这两种结构的可用纵向数据（75 个样本，包括 32,402 名参与者）。总共有 355 个效应量（包括横截面、前瞻性和交叉滞后系数）被纳入荟萃分析。在控制相关结果的先前水平的情况下，结果表明，随着时间的推移，社会支持和 PTSD 相互预测，具有相似的效应大小：社会支持预测 PTSD，β = -0.10；PTSD 以 β = -0.09 预测社会支持。主持人分析表明，除了几个主持人（性别、时间滞后、出版年份、支持来源）之外，大多数样本特征和研究设计的影响都存在。这些发现为社会因果模型和社会选择模型提供了强有力的证据，表明社会支持与 PTSD 之间的联系是对称互惠和稳健的。主持人分析表明，除了几个主持人（性别、时间滞后、出版年份、支持来源）之外，大多数样本特征和研究设计的影响都存在。这些发现为社会因果模型和社会选择模型提供了强有力的证据，表明社会支持与 PTSD 之间的联系是对称互惠和稳健的。主持人分析表明，除了几个主持人（性别、时间滞后、出版年份、支持来源）之外，大多数样本特征和研究设计的影响都存在。这些发现为社会因果模型和社会选择模型提供了强有力的证据，表明社会支持与 PTSD 之间的联系是对称互惠和稳健的。