The effect of post-traumatic stress disorder on refugees' parenting and their children's mental health: a cohort study

Bryant, Richard A.; Edwards, Ben; Creamer, Mark; O’Donnell, Meaghan; Forbes, David; Felmingham, Kim L.; Silove, Derrick; Steel, Zachary; Nickerson, Angela; McFarlane, Alexander C.; Hooff, Miranda Van; Hadži-Pavlović, Dušan

doi:10.1016/s2468-2667(18)30051-3

Cited by 182 publications

(156 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…As demonstrated in previous research, post-traumatic stress extends beyond the individual to family members and can be experienced as a common trauma in the family, where parents' reactions to traumatic experiences and the child's own perception of these experiences may affect the child's wellbeing and mental health [15]. Parental experience of traumatic stress may lead to a lack of consistency and stability in the family and has been associated with disconnected and insensitive parenting behaviour and harsh parenting styles [11,12,25,26]. Parental exposure to various forms of trauma has also been associated with an increased risk of violent behaviour and child abuse [27,28].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Parental PTSD and school performance in 16-year-olds – a Swedish national cohort study

Berg

Charboti

Montgomery

et al. 2019

Nordic Journal of Psychiatry

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Aim: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in parents can have severe consequences also for their children. Prevalence of PTSD is high among refugees. Refugee children have been reported to perform poorly in school. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of PTSD in refugee and native Swedish parents on children's school performance and to compare the impact of PTSD with that of other major psychiatric disorders. Methods: Register study where multiple regression models were used to analyse school performance in 15-16-year-olds in a national cohort (n ¼ 703,813). PTSD and other major psychiatric disorders (bipolar, depression and/or psychotic disorders) were identified from out-and in-patient hospital care. Results: Maternal and paternal PTSD were associated with lower grades, with adjusted effects of 0.30-0.37 SD in refugee and 0.46-0.50 SD in native Swedish families. Impact of PTSD was greater than that of other psychiatric disorders and comorbidity to PTSD did not increase this impact. Although the impact of PTSD on grades was greater in children in native Swedish families, consequences with regard to eligibility to secondary education were greater for children in refugee families, where 35% of these children were ineligible. Conclusions: Parental PTSD has major consequences for children's school performance and contributes to the lower school performance in children in refugee families in Sweden. Identification and treatment of PTSD in refugee parents is important for offspring educational achievement. Psychiatric clinics and treatment centres need to have a strategy for support, including educational support, to the offspring of their patients with PTSD. ARTICLE HISTORY

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Parental PTSD and school performance in 16-year-olds – a Swedish national cohort study

Berg

Charboti

Montgomery

et al. 2019

Nordic Journal of Psychiatry

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“…Maternal PTSD symptoms have also been found to be related to PARENTAL PTSD AND CHILD ADJUSTMENT 4 increased child anxiety (Field et al, 2013). In an Australian refugee sample, the primary caregiver's severity of PTSD was found to be associated with poorer child adjustment including a higher prevalence of conduct, hyperactivity, emotional and peer problems (Bryant et al, 2018). Khamis (2016) studied refugee families settled in the U.S from the Gaza strip and found that when the influence of parent's psychological distress was controlled for, children's direct exposure to traumatic experiences was no longer associated with psychological difficulties.…”

Section: Parental Ptsd and Child Adjustmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parental trajectories of PTSD and child adjustment: Findings from the Building a New Life in Australia study.

Reid

Berle

2020

American Journal of Orthopsychiatry

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Aims. Evidence suggests that the psychosocial adjustment of children of refugees may be compromised when a parent has symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We sought to determine whether trajectories of parental PTSD symptoms might relate to child adjustment and whether there is an additive effect when both, as opposed to just one parent, has prominent PTSD symptoms. Method. We report data from the first three years of a prospective study of recent Australian humanitarian migrants: the Building a New Life in Australia study. Parental PTSD symptoms were assessed on three occasions and Latent Class Growth Analysis was used to identify homogenous groups of parents based on their PTSD symptoms. The Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire was administered to assess child psychosocial adjustment. Regression analyses were then conducted to determine whether trajectories of parental PTSD symptoms predicted child adjustment. Results. After controlling for child age and gender, the presence of either one or both parents with persistently high PTSD symptoms was associated with children having greater emotional difficulties and poorer overall psychosocial adjustment. Children with both parents with persistently high PTSD had higher levels of emotional difficulties than children with a single parent with high PTSD symptoms. Conclusion. For emotional difficulties, though not other domains of child psychosocial adjustment, there indeed appears to be an "additive" impact of having two, rather than just one parent with persistently high PTSD symptoms, although the magnitude of these effects was small. The clinical and service provision implications of these findings are discussed.

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“…Refugee parents may work to enable their children's recovery and resilience, or their own mental health and difficulty may add to the difficulties of their children's developmental and acculturation accomplishments (Bryant et al, 2018;Measham et al, 2014). Since developmental pathways are likely to vary, it is important to know what relations and social structures are in place in the environment, and how they are interpreted and used by children and young people.…”

Section: Bases For Investigating Refugee Children's Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The context and structure of children's expressions of worry are relevant to their emphases, along with the form and structure of research questions. The challenges of resettlement can pile up worrying feelings in children as well as in parents (Bryant et al, 2018;Kaplan, 2013;Montgomery, 2011). Longitudinal data are needed to determine whether school-related issues rise to greater prominence with more time in Australian schools.…”

Section: Who or What Helped Children To Feelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Computer-Assisted Expressions of the Perspectives of Refugee Children in Resettlement

Lawrence¹,

Kaplan²,

Dodds³

2019

Human Development

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Understanding the perspectives of refugee children on their lives is important for acknowledging children’s rights, competence, and contributions to practice and policy. Children’s perspectives are the views they construct for framing events, relationships and images, and the meanings they convey in relational coactions with other people and institutions. We demonstrate the usefulness of digital technology in the form of computer-assisted interviews (CAIs) for enabling refugee children to express perspectives on their lives in resettlement. We describe how CAIs constructed by adopting a child’s perspective recognize the children’s agency and enable their expressions of their perspectives. We illustrate the facilities of CAIs with analyses of children’s ratings and open-ended typed comments about their worries and who helps them to feel better. Children’s views revealed the predominance of family members as sources of worry and help. We discuss the implications of using digital technology in research to provide children with ways of contributing to knowledge construction.

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The effect of post-traumatic stress disorder on refugees' parenting and their children's mental health: a cohort study

Abstract: National Health and Medical Research Council.

Cited by 182 publications

References 35 publications

Parental PTSD and school performance in 16-year-olds – a Swedish national cohort study

Parental PTSD and school performance in 16-year-olds – a Swedish national cohort study

Parental trajectories of PTSD and child adjustment: Findings from the Building a New Life in Australia study.

Computer-Assisted Expressions of the Perspectives of Refugee Children in Resettlement

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