![]() Generally, most children recover from the frightening experiences associated with a disaster without professional intervention. Finally, children and adolescents who are farther away from the traumatic event report less distress. Studies show that children and adolescents with greater family support and less parental distress have lower levels of PTSD symptoms. Family support and parental coping have also been shown to affect PTSD symptoms in children. In general, most studies find that children and adolescents who report experiencing the most severe traumas also report the highest levels of PTSD symptoms. These factors include the severity of the traumatic event, the parental reaction to the traumatic event, and the physical proximity to the traumatic event. There are three factors that have been shown to increase the likelihood that children will develop PTSD. The degree of impact on children is also influenced by the destruction they experience second hand through television and other sources of media reports. The death of family members or friends is the most traumatic, followed by loss of the family home, school, special pets, and the extent of damage to the community. Here is the order of events rated by level of severity: The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP, 1998) suggests that a child’s reaction to a disaster, such as a hurricane, flood, fire, or earthquake, depends upon how much destruction is experienced during or after the event. Children and adolescents may be diagnosed with PTSD if they have survived natural and man made disasters such as floods violent crimes such as kidnapping, rape or murder of a parent, sniper fire, and school shootings motor vehicle accidents such as automobile and plane crashes severe burns exposure to community violence war peer suicide and sexual and physical abuse. There are a number of traumatic events that have been shown to cause PTSD in children and adolescents. ![]() Today it is widely know that children and adolescents develop PTSD.Ī diagnosis of PTSD means that an individual experienced an event that involved a threat to one’s own or another’s life or physical integrity and that this person responded A diagnosis of PTSD means that an individual experienced an event that involved a threat to one’s own or another’s life or physical integrity and that this person responded with intense fear, helplessness, or horror. At that time, little was know about PTSD in children. The diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) was formally recognized as a psychiatric diagnosis in 1980.
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