This study examined media viewing by mothers with violence-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and related media exposure of their preschool-age children. Mothers (N = 67) recruited from community pediatric clinics participated in a protocol involving a media-preference survey. Severity of maternal PTSD and dissociation were significantly associated with child exposure to violent media...

There is to date no comprehensive theoretical account of how PTSD develops in children. Theories of adult PTSD (e.g. Brewin, Dalgleish & Joseph, 1996, Ehlers & Clarke, 2000) exist yet their applicability to childhood PTSD is somewhat limited, as they fail to account for the developmental level of the child and the child’s context (dependency on their parent/s). Previous research in the field ha...

Trauma, especially early life trauma, is a risk factor for the development of both posttraumatic stress disorder and psychosis. The goal of the present study was to determine specific associations between exposure to childhood abuse, PTSD symptoms, and current psychotic disorder. Subjects were recruited from a public, urban hospital (N=328, >90% African American). Psychotic disorders were measu...

OBJECTIVE Exposure to emotionally traumatic events is common among children who are treated in pediatric medical care settings, and it is important to recognize the emotional reactions that children might develop as a response to the trauma. Practitioners sometimes rely on parental reports of the child's emotional reactions, but these reports may be biased by the parent's own posttraumatic symp...

Violence against women affects mother–child interactions, which may in turn affect their children’s playfulness. We examined the effect of a history of violence against mothers on mother–child interactions and children’s playfulness. This crosssectional pilot study consisted of 36 mother–child dyads residing in family crisis shelters due to serious violence from an intimate partner. One subgrou...

Cognitive appraisals of the trauma play a key role in children’s adjustment following a traumatic event, but how these appraisals develop is not well understood. Cognitive models of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) suggest that social support is a key influence on the development of appraisals, and we aimed to explore this relationship further. As predicted by cognitive models of PTSD...

Child- and caregiver-report about parenting behaviors, and caregiver-report of their own symptoms were examined in relation to children's symptomatology following a potentially traumatic event (PTE) among 91 youth. Child-report of hostile and coercive parenting was a salient predictor of child posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), internalizing symptoms, and personal adjustment. Caregivers' own...

BACKGROUND A new interview measure of life events and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been developed for children and adolescents aged 9 through 17, for use in both epidemiological and clinical studies. It includes 'high magnitude' events associated with PTSD as well as other 'low magnitude' events. METHOD The interview is designed as a module of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatric...

BACKGROUND Accidental injury represents the most common type of traumatic event to which a child or adolescent may be exposed, with a significant number of these children going on to experience posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, very little research has examined potential interventions for the treatment of PTSD in these children. The present trial aims to evaluate and compare child-...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate community-provided trauma-focused cognitive behavior therapy (TF-CBT) compared with usual community treatment for children with intimate partner violence (IPV)-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. DESIGN Randomized controlled trial conducted using blinded evaluators. SETTING Recruitment, screening, and treatment were conducted at a community IPV cente...