Tag Archives: PTSD

Does being optimistic help you recover from trauma?

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Last week, we had every reason to be shocked again about how cruel our world can be. The shooting in Aurora, Colorado, was in bizarre contrast with the fun evening that the movie goers expected to have. There was the one-year anniversary of Breivik’s attack in Norway. Our TVs screened ongoing, severe violence in Syria and other parts of the world. Not much reason to be optimistic, it seems.

However, the personality factor ‘optimism’ in itself may be an important asset when confronted with terrible things: Continue reading →

A Quarter of Cases of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Is With Delayed Onset

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This month’s guest post is by Geert Smid. Geert is a psychiatrist with Foundation Centrum ’45, the Dutch national institute for specialized diagnosis and mental health treatment after persecution, war and violence. He is also a researcher at Arq Psychotrauma Expert Group. Geert completed his PhD on Delayed Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in 2011 with a number of beautiful publications. He’ll make your brain work a little on this very topic:

According to the current edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, delayed posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) must be diagnosed in individuals fulfilling criteria for PTSD if the onset of symptoms is at least 6 months after the trauma. The prevalence of delayed PTSD has for a long time remained unclear, and only few studies have examined factors that may explain its occurrence. The findings summarized below are based on prospective investigations in disaster survivors and unaccompanied refugee minors, as well as a comprehensive meta-analysis of prospective studies.

1. About a quarter of PTSD cases is with delayed onset. The results of our meta-analysis showed that delayed PTSD occurs in about one quarter of all PTSD cases. The risk of delayed PTSD did not decrease between 9 and 25 months after the traumatic event, and when traumatized populations were followed up for longer periods of time, more delayed PTSD cases were found. These findings suggest ongoing potential risk for some individuals.

2. During the interval between the trauma and delayed PTSD onset, some symptoms are likely to occur. Delayed PTSD occurred most often in individuals already reporting “subthreshold” symptoms after the traumatic event. These symptoms Continue reading →

Psychological Impact of Injury on Young Children and their Parents

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Many thanks to Dr. Alexandra De Young (University of Queensland) for two great seminars in Melbourne yesterday! Alex gave an overview of the findings from a longitudinal study with 130 young burn injured children (aged one to six years) and their parents.

The topics she discussed included:

  1. Prevalence, comorbidity and course of trauma reactions in the children
  2. Prevalence of trauma reactions in the parents
  3. A model of risk factors for persistent trauma reactions, and
  4. Clinical implications for current and future management of trauma reactions.

You can download a pdf of the presentation here. In addition, have a look at one of her central papers about trauma reactions in young children (free pdf). Last but not least, the new website of the child trauma research unit where she works is a good resource, both for clinicians and for families.

Are we winning the fight against Posttraumatic Stress Disorder?

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It’s the question Richard McNally, an eminent PTSD scholar in the US, posed in Science earlier this month. The journal devoted a special issue to human conflict and McNally zoomed in on PTSD after combat duty. His comments are worth sharing and have implications that go beyond the military: Continue reading →

The 5 best books on children and trauma

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Books! For a Dutch publication on supporting children after trauma, I have read and re-read a number of books on children and traumatic stress in the past couple of months. Five of them clearly stood out as favorites, mainly because of their innovative ideas, child-centered approach, and/or practical examples of how to help children.

 
Here they are, in random order. Would you agree with the selection? Continue reading →