On the one hand, children and adolescents who experience a terrorist attack directly or indirectly would be expected to present more emotional symptoms and disorders in adulthood than people who were already adults when they experienced a terrorist attack directly or indirectly, for at least three reasons. However, it is unclear whether having suffered a terrorist attack in childhood or adolescence also poses an increased risk of developing emotional disorders in adulthood compared to a terrorist attack that was suffered during adulthood itself. These include increased presence of depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, PTSD, or their symptoms ( Maercker et al., 2004 Kessler et al., 2010 Maschi et al., 2013 Copeland et al., 2018), especially in adults who have suffered some form of maltreatment ( Li et al., 2016 Nelson et al., 2017) or sexual abuse ( Hailes et al., 2019) during their childhood or adolescence. The scientific literature has also found that exposure to traumatic situations during childhood or adolescence has long-term psychopathological consequences in adulthood. For example, the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in children and adolescents between 4 and 13 months after suffering a terrorist attack ranges from 10 to 30% ( García-Vera et al., 2021 but see Pat-Horenczyk, 2005, for lower prevalence figures). The results are discussed concerning the differences between various types of trauma and in the context of the theories that propose that traumatic experiences are processed differently at different ages and can lead to differences in the likelihood of developing different emotional disorders.Ī large number of reviews of the scientific literature have found a high prevalence of symptoms and emotional disorders in children and adolescents who suffered a terrorist attack directly or indirectly ( Fremont, 2004 Comer and Kendall, 2007 Neria et al., 2011 Perlman et al., 2011 Pereda, 2013 Slone and Mann, 2016). The results of several multiple binary logistic regression analyses also indicated that, after controlling for the effect of sex, current age, the type of victims, and the time since the attack, the age at which the attack was suffered was not related to the current prevalence of those emotional disorders. No significant differences were found between the three age groups at which the attack occurred in terms of the current prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder, major depressive disorder, or anxiety disorders. All of them underwent a structured diagnostic interview (SCID-I-VC) an average of 21 years after the attacks. A sample of 566 direct and indirect victims of terrorist attacks in Spain was recruited, of whom 50 people were between the age of 3 and 9 when they suffered the attack, 46 were between 10 and 17 years old, and 470 were adults. As there are no studies on the psychopathological impact in adulthood of attacks suffered during childhood or adolescence, the objective of this study was to analyze the influence of the age at which a terrorist attack was suffered in the presence of emotional disorders many years after the attack. However, an evolutionary perspective suggests that there may be differential vulnerabilities depending on the age at which the trauma was suffered. Department of Personality, Assessment, and Clinical Psychology, Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, SpainĪbundant scientific literature shows that exposure to traumatic situations during childhood or adolescence has long-term psychopathological consequences, for example, in the form of a higher prevalence of emotional disorders in adulthood.Sara Prieto Jesús Sanz * María Paz García-Vera Rocío Fausor Noelia Morán Beatriz Cobos Clara Gesteira Roberto Navarro Pedro Altungy
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |