PTSD can persist for
years in kids, but parents may not see it
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[November 09, 2016]
By Kathryn Doyle
(Reuters Health) - After a car crash,
children can experience post-traumatic stress disorder for months or
years afterward although parents may have trouble recognizing it,
according to a new U.K. study.
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“What these results stress I think is that we need to take the
reactions of young children to these sorts of events seriously –
their reactions can persist for years in some cases,” lead author
Dr. Richard Meiser-Stedman of the University of East Anglia’s
Norwich Medical School told Reuters Health by email.
Among children aged 8 years and over, roughly 10 to 30 percent of
those in motor vehicle collisions experience PTSD, he said.
The researchers studied 71 families of children ages 2 to 10 and
their parents or caregivers who went to an emergency department
after a motor vehicle collision in 2004 or 2005. Families had
post-trauma assessments two to four weeks after the accident, six
months later, and again three years later.
Half the children had been riding in a car and 40 percent had been
pedestrians. Almost 30 percent had no injuries, 65 percent had only
soft tissue injuries and 7 percent had broken bones. Four children
lost consciousness and 11 were admitted to the hospital.
Most children who showed signs of stress after the accident did not
go on to develop PTSD. But among the 17 percent of children who met
criteria for pediatric PTSD at the three-year point, parents who
were themselves experiencing difficulties often did not recognize
the child’s ongoing problem.
“Parents may not spot the signs of PTSD for the same reasons that
parents may miss many mental health difficulties, particularly
emotional disorders like anxiety and depression,” Meiser-Stedman
said. “Poor mental health may often be a very private experience,
and children find it difficult to describe their thoughts and
feelings.”
Parents with post-traumatic stress symptoms at the beginning of the
study more often had children with post-traumatic stress symptoms,
even three years later, researchers reported in the Journal of
Clinical Psychiatry.
Children’s age, intelligence and trauma severity were not tied to
their odds of having PTSD three years after the accident.
“It's rare that really young children are studied after a potential
trauma, let alone followed over time. Most studies focus on the
first year after something happened,” said Eva Alisic of the Trauma
Recovery Lab at Monash University in Australia, who was not part of
the study. “This study shows that even three years down the track,
some children still struggle.”
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We should support parents as well as children after a motor vehicle
collision, and should aim to use more than parents' reports when
assessing a child’s wellbeing, Alisic told Reuters Health by email.
“What this study has shown is that a significant minority of young
children can develop PTSD after ‘one-off’ traumas, and that this
reaction for years can persist in some,” Meiser-Stedman said.
“There’s no evidence to suggest that young children are somehow
‘immune’ to developing PTSD because of their age.”
In young children, symptoms of PTSD include diminished interest in
significant activities and social withdrawal.
There’s encouraging evidence from randomized controlled trials in
the U.S. that trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy is
effective treatment, but more research is needed, Meiser-Stedman
said.
Diagnosis and treatment of PTSD in members of the same family can be
quite disjointed, he said. “I think the data from this study
suggests that assessment and treatment could benefit from addressing
the whole family unit.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2fkNEze Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, online
November 8, 2016.
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