NCJ Number
246963
Journal
Child Abuse and Neglect Volume: 37 Issue: 11 Dated: November 2013 Pages: 891-898
Date Published
November 2013
Length
8 pages
Annotation
Multiple trauma exposures during childhood are associated with a range of psychological symptoms later in life.
Abstract
Multiple trauma exposures during childhood are associated with a range of psychological symptoms later in life. In this study, we examined whether the total number of different types of trauma experienced by children cumulative trauma is associated with the complexity of their subsequent symptomatology, where complexity is defined as the number of different symptom clusters simultaneously elevated into the clinical range. Children's symptoms in six different trauma-related areas e.g., depression, anger, posttraumatic stress were reported both by child clients and their caretakers in a clinical sample of 318 children. Path analysis revealed that accumulated exposure to multiple different trauma types predicts symptom complexity as reported by both children and their caretakers.