The Socio-demographic Information Form

The Socio–demographic Information Form was developed in order to collect information about age, gender, marital status, education level, vocation, work status (employed, if yes; time of employment), and income level rated on a 5–point scale rangin from 1 (very low) to 5 (high) (See Table 1). Moreover, the job statuses of the participants are presented in Table 4.

Questions related to the accident were also developed in order to collect information about the number of traffic accidents during the last ten years (from 2004 to 2014), the time of the most serious accident (if there are more than one accident), participants’ role in the accident (driver or passenger), and the type of vehicle (private car, taxi, bus, minibus, truck, and other).

Moreover, additional questions were developed with the aim of assessing the damage that resulted from the accident. The severity of financial damage in participants’ vehicle and other vehicles, and the severity of participants’ injury were assessed using 6–point scales ranging from 1 (none) to 6 (very severe). Furthermore, injury status of other individuals involved in the accident (number of injured individuals and the degree of the most severe injury) and others being dead (the number of death and the proximity of the participant to that individual) were assessed by questions rated on a 6–point scale ranging from 1 (none) to 6 (very severe).

Additionally, with the aim of examining the perceived severity of the accident, the degree of perceived threat of death (self or others); intense fear or horror, and helplessness were rated on 5–point scale (from 1 “none” to 5 “very much”). Moreover, the disturbance caused by the accident was rated in 6–point scale ranging from 1 (none) to 6 (very severe).

In order to develop a unique measurement representing the perceived severity of the event, 8 questions examining the severity of the accident were integrated into one statistical value. A unique value of perceived severity was calculated for each participant of the study by transforming 5–point scales into 6–point scale ranging from 1 (none) to 6 (very severe) (See the items from Table 5). Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of this perceived severity scale was found to be .72.

Finally, physical and psychological treatment, and the duration of recovery process were also asked (see Appendix A for Socio–demographic Information Form).