Les enfants juifs, orphelins de la Shoah ayant survécu aux persécutions nazies et à la collaboration française en étant cachés ont souvent été confrontés à de multiples traumatismes. Devenus adultes, parents et grands-parents, certains d'entre eux participent depuis plusieurs années à des associations visant à honorer et transmettre la mémoire de leurs parents assassinés en déportation.

Dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA)-axis is hypothesized to underlie stress-related psychiatric disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We aimed to explore whether trauma exposure is associated with alterations in HPA-axis functioning in the absence of lifetime psychiatric morbidity. We included 39 trauma-exposed healthy male subjects (mean age=47 years, SD=9.2) and 24 non-exposed healthy male controls (mean age=47.4 years, SD=14.5). All subjects were free of lifetime psychopathology.

Longitudinal research has associated the disposition toward self-enhancing biases with better adjustment following potentially traumatic events (PTEs). However, self-enhancement was always measured in these studies after the PTE, thus confounding it with exposure. This study used a prospective design that tracked PTEs in college students over a 4-year period using an online checklist (n = 69). Most participants experienced at least 1 PTE, and the mean number of PTEs was 4.40.

The aim of the present study was to assess and understand the long-term trajectory of psychological problems among young Middle Eastern refugees in Denmark. Participants were 131 young refugees from the Middle East (76 girls, 55 boys, mean age = 15.3 years) from 67 families. They were assessed first on arrival in Denmark in 1992-1993 and again 8-9 years later. The high prevalence of psychological problems at arrival was considerably reduced by the time of follow-up, but it was still somewhat higher than what has been found in most community studies using the same assessment tools.