Relationship Between Type of Trauma Exposure and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Among Urban Children and Adolescents

Abstract

This study examines the association between trauma exposure and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among 157 help-seeking children (aged 8-17). Structured clinical interviews are carried out, and linear and logistic regression analyses are conducted to examine the relationship between PTSD and type of trauma exposure controlling for age, gender, and ethnicity. Confrontation with traumatic news, witnessing domestic violence, physical abuse, and sexual abuse are each significantly associated with PTSD. Witnessing a crime, being the victim of a crime, and exposure to accidents, fire, or disaster are not associated with PTSD. These findings underscore the association between interpersonal violence and childhood PTSD.

Dissimilarity in Vulnerability: Self-Reported Symptoms Among Children with Experiences of Intimate Partner Violence

“…Two-way, between group analyses of variance were used to investigate interaction effects between gender and age respectively (younger 7-10 and older [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] and various other background factors pertaining to children's self-reported symptoms. Partial eta squared was (g p 2 ) then used to estimate effect sizes.…”

“…The internal consistency for the present sample was acceptable (.75). To create a reference group for the children in this study, results from another Swedish study [48] that included 243 non-clinical children (aged [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] was used. In this Swedish study, the mean value on the SDQ-C total score was 7.9 (SD 4.4).…”

“…alcohol abuse) were considered more significant, mothers and children were referred to other authorities or treatments and therefore were not included in the study. A total of 159 children (ages [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] were considered for treatment during the research period, and 112 children were accepted for treatment. Of the children who were accepted, 78 also agreed to participate in the research project and 41 of them were between 7 and 19 years old.…”

“…Interpersonal trauma is simultaneously a psychological, physiological and relational event, leading to loss of trust and a sense of betrayal [12,13]. Exposure to interpersonal trauma has more psychosocial consequences than does noninterpersonal trauma and is more associated with childhood Post traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) [14]. Children living with IPV are obviously at risk of being exposed to recurrent frightening experiences, and due to the situation, they may also lack social support.…”

The Relation of Exposure to Traumatic Events and Longitudinal Mental Health Outcomes for Children Enrolled in Systems of Care: Results from a National System of Care Evaluation

“…Moreover, exposure to PTEs as a child is consistently associated with more severe health and mental health problems than adult exposure (Neigh, Gillespie & Nemeroff, 2009;Ogle, Rubin & Siegler, 2013), so intervening early is crucial to minimize and reduce long-term negative effects. For children, interpersonal violence types of PTEs (e.g., witnessing domestic violence, physical abuse, and sexual abuse) appear to be associated with more severe consequences, such as PTSD (Luthra et al, 2009), and negatively affect more domains of functioning (Greeson et al, 2014;Ogle et al, 2013) than noninterpersonal PTEs (e.g., accidents, disasters, or community violence). Therefore, this study examined children's exposure to interpersonal PTEs: witnessing domestic violence, physical abuse, and sexual abuse.…”