Making Secondary Trauma a Primary Issue: A Study of Eyewitness Media and Vicarious Trauma on the Digital Frontline

This report presents the findings of an in-depth study into the impact that viewing traumatic eyewitness media has upon the mental health of staff working for news, human rights and humanitarian organisations.
I see blood every day. I see bleeding bodies every day and I cannot think about this clinically or scientifically. I cannot look at cut off limbs without thinking ‘Oh my God’.

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Programming of hippocampal structure and function by early-life stress: Opportunities for nutritional intervention

Early-life is a critical developmental phase during which brain structure and function are shaped 'for life'. When early-life is disturbed by stress-exposure, this lastingly programs our brains and is associated with impaired cognition and predisposition to psychopathology in adulthood. Unfortunately, early-life stress (ES) is no exception in society. However, prevention of ES is often not feasible and currently no effective intervention strategies are available to prevent or repair the lasting consequences of ES on mental health.

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Evaluating predictive screening for children’s post-injury mental health: New data and a replication

Background: Recommended approaches for secondary prevention of posttrauma mental health difficulties in children require empirically sound predictive screening to determine which children require more intensive monitoring or targeted intervention. Although there are several promising screening tools for injured children, none has emerged as the gold standard, and little replication data are available regarding their performance.

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Intergenerational violence in Burundi: Experienced childhood maltreatment increases the risk of abusive child rearing and intimate partner violence

Background: Experiencing abuse during childhood affects the psychological well-being of individuals throughout their lives and may even influence their offspring by enhancing the likelihood of an intergenerational transmission of violence. Understanding the effects of childhood maltreatment on child-rearing practices and intimate partner violence might be of particular importance to overcome the consequences of violent conflicts in African societies.

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Social relationship satisfaction and PTSD: which is the chicken and which is the egg?

Background: Impaired social relationships are linked with higher levels of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but the association’s underlying dynamics are unknown. PTSD may impair social relationships, and, vice versa, poorer relationship quality may interfere with the recovery from PTSD.
Objective: This work longitudinally evaluates the simultaneous progression of PTSD symptoms and social relationship satisfaction (SRS) in a large cohort of recent trauma survivors. It also explores the effect of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) on the association between the two.

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Indicators of terrorist intent and capability: Tools for threat assessment

Behaviors or expressions can (inadvertently) communicate the intention or capability to commit a terrorist attack. Such pre-attack “indicators” can be used to improve police services’ ability to detect and interdict terrorist plots before they materialize. This article explores the concept of terrorism indicators by applying it to seven case studies of home-grown jihadist groups and individuals that occurred in three Western countries between 2004 and 2007.

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Implementation of Evidence-Based Treatment for PTSD

There is relatively little adoption of evidence-based treatments (EBTs) into routine practice. Dissemination of EBTs or practice guidelines through traditional educational activities (e.g., formal continuing education programs) has limited impact on day-to-day clinical practice. Implementation science is an emerging field that has developed as the gap between research and practice has been identified across a variety of health care settings. The field is concerned with the study of methods to promote the integration of research findings into health care practice and policy.

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Embodied simulation in exposure-based therapies for posttraumatic stress disorder - a possible integration of cognitive behavioral theories, neuroscience, and psychoanalysis

Exposure to the trauma memory is the common denominator of most evidence-based interventions for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Although exposure-based therapies aim to change associative learning networks and negative cognitions related to the trauma memory, emotional interactions between patient and therapist have not been thoroughly considered in past evaluations of exposure-based therapy. This work focuses on recent discoveries of the mirror-neuron system and the theory of embodied simulation (ES).

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Suicide risk among 1.3 million veterans who were on active duty during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars

Purpose: We conducted a retrospective cohort mortality study to determine the postservice suicide risk of recent wartime veterans comparing them with the US general population as well as comparing

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Guilt is associated with acute stress symptoms in children after road traffic accidents

Background: Although previous research has consistently found considerable rates of acute stress disorder (ASD) in children with accidental injuries, knowledge about determinants of ASD remains incomplete. Guilt is a common reaction among children after a traumatic event and has been shown to contribute to posttraumatic stress disorder. However, its relationship to ASD has never been examined.

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