Background

National guidelines recognize lifetime trauma as relevant to clinical care for adults nearing the end of life. We determined the prevalence of early life and cumulative trauma among persons at the end of life by gender and birth cohort, and the association of lifetime trauma with end-of-life physical, mental, and social well-being.

Methods

Highlights

•  Earthquakes cause profound physical and mental health impacts in human history.
•  Affected adults face about twice the risk of short-term stress-related psychiatric disorders.
•  Risk of PTSD is significantly higher in adults affected by earthquakes.
•  Middle-aged males (40-64 years) show higher rates of stress-related mental illnesses short-term (<1 year) and long-term (up to 20 years)

In bereavement, some individuals develop complicated grief reactions (CGR), including symptoms of prolonged grief disorder (PGD), posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and depression. Symptoms of PGD often co-occur with other complicated grief reactions, e.g., PTSD and depression, pointing to the need for a transdiagnostic understanding of CGR to inform treatment. In this paper, a transdiagnostic cognitive-behavioral therapy for CGR called “CBTgrief” is explained, including its theoretical framework and treatment content.

Children are no strangers to war and conflict, and for as long as history has been documented, so too has the negative impact of war on children. Attachment theory, which has shone a light upon the ways in which early life experiences can impact individuals across the lifespan, is a helpful lens through which we can view the consequences of war. Similar to the aftermath of war leading to lifelong and transgenerational suffering due to deaths and physical health issues, attachment difficulties created during war further compound long-term damage.