Emotional scars : Impact of childhood trauma on depressive and anxiety disorders

Background

Almost on a weekly basis, we are confronted by horrific images of children enduring

inconceivable traumas, such as the frequent school shootings in the US, the reports of

abducted girls being held captive for years, and the many children exposed to war in the

Middle East. On those days, we hug our children a little closer. We feel grateful for what

we have, and mourn what others have lost. What we do not think about are the countless

children who experience trauma just as distressing, but far too common to make headlines.

Violence against children, later victimisation, and mental health: a cross-sectional study of the general Norwegian population

Background: Violence in childhood is associated with mental health problems and risk of revictimisation. Less
is known about the relative importance of the various types of childhood and adult victimisation for adult
mental health.
Objective: To estimate the associations between various types of childhood and adult violence exposure, and
their combined associations to adult mental health.
Method: This study was a cross-sectional telephone survey of the Norwegian adult population; 2,435 women

PTSD after childbirth: A predictive ethological model for symptom development

Abstract
Background
Childbirth can be a traumatic experience occasionally leading to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This study aimed to assess childbirth-related PTSD risk-factors using an etiological model inspired by the transactional model of stress and coping.
Methods
348 out of 505 (70%) Dutch women completed questionnaires during pregnancy, one week postpartum, and three months postpartum. A further 284 (56%) also completed questionnaires ten months postpartum. The model was tested using path analysis.
Results

Assessing the Family Dynamics of Childhood Maltreatment History with the Childhood Attachment and Relational Trauma Screen (CARTS)

Background: Existing survey measures of childhood trauma history generally fail to take into account the relational-socioecological environment in which childhood maltreatment occurs. Variables such as the relationship between the perpetrator and the victim, the emotional availability of caregivers, witnessing the abuse of others, and the respondent’s own thoughts, feelings, and actions in response to maltreatment are rarely assessed by current measures.

A Review of Parent Participation Engagement in Child and Family Mental Health Treatment

Engagement in child and family mental health treatment has critically important clinical, implementation, and policy implications for efforts to improve the quality and effectiveness of care. This article describes a review of the existing literature on one understudied element of engagement, parent participation. Twenty-three published articles were identified.

Trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy or eye movement desensitization and reprocessing: what works in children with posttraumatic stress symptoms? A randomized controlled trial

To prevent adverse long-term effects, children who suffer from posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) need treatment. Trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT) is an established treatment for children with PTSS. However, alternatives are important for non-responders or if TF-CBT trained therapists are unavailable. Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is a promising treatment for which sound comparative evidence is lacking. The current randomized controlled trial investigates the effectiveness and efficiency of both treatments.

Descendants of Holocaust Survivors Have Altered Stress Hormones

A person's experience as a child or teenager can have a profound impact on their future children's lives, new work is showing.

Rachel Yehuda, a researcher in the growing field of epigenetics and the intergenerational effects of trauma, and her colleagues have long studied mass trauma survivors and their offspring. Their latest results reveal that descendants of people who survived the Holocaust have different stress hormone profiles than their peers, perhaps predisposing them to anxiety disorders.

 

School-Based Psychological Screening in the Aftermath of a Disaster: Are Parents Satisfied and Do Their Children Access Treatment?

This study investigated parents’ satisfactionwith postdisaster school-based screening and whether satisfactionwas related to follow-through with screening recommendations. From among 1,268 there were 224 children, ages 7–18 years (M = 10.97, SD = 2.44 years) screened for emotional distress 4 months after a flood and 130 parents who completed the screening evaluation. Of the 44 children who showed severe emotional distress, less than 50% of their parents reported concerns and only 29.5% had sought assistance. Following screening, 86.7% of these children completed treatment.

Intervention for children exposed to interparental violence : A randomized controlled trial of effectiveness of specific factors, moderators and mediators in community-based intervention

The main aim of this thesis was to evaluate the added benefit of applying specific factors in community-based intervention for child witnesses of interparental violence (IPV) and their parents, by means of a randomized controlled trial (RCT). The results of this RCT showed no additional benefits of a program with (trauma)specific factors compared to a structural equivalent control program with only non-specific factors. Children in both community-based interventions improved in their level of adjustment problems, assessed by different reporters.

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