Open AccessTraumatic Events Are Associated with Diverse Psychological Symptoms in Typically-Developing Children
Author(s) -
Mackenzie S. Mills,
Christine M. Embury,
Alicia K. Klanecky,
Maya M. Khanna,
Vince D. Calhoun,
Julia M. Stephen,
Yu Ping Wang,
Tony W. Wilson,
Amy S. Badura-Brack
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of child and adolescent trauma
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.583
H-Index - 19
eISSN - 1936-153X
pISSN - 1936-1521
DOI - 10.1007/s40653-019-00284-y
Subject(s) - psychopathology , anxiety , clinical psychology , anger , psychology , child psychopathology , traumatic stress , poison control , mental health , injury prevention , depression (economics) , distress , psychiatry , psychological trauma , medicine , environmental health , economics , macroeconomics
Childhood traumatic events are significant risk factors for psychopathology according to adult retrospective research; however, few studies examine trauma exposure and psychological symptoms in pre-adolescent children. Typically-developing children, aged 9-12 years ( N = 114), were recruited from the community and selected from the Developmental Chronnecto-Genomics (Dev-CoG) study examining child development. Children completed questionnaires about traumatic life events, posttraumatic stress, anxiety, depression, dissociation, anger, and internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Parents also completed internalizing and externalizing measures. The number of traumatic events significantly correlated with symptom severity across all child-report psychological measures, but surprisingly, trauma was not correlated with any parent-report scores. Follow-up analyses revealed a significant trauma effect for internalizing and externalizing behaviors according to child self-report, but not for parent-report measures. Results indicate that childhood trauma may be a non-specific risk factor for sub-clinical psychopathology in otherwise typically-developing children. Moreover, children appear to be the most appropriate reporters of their own psychological distress.