Derluyn Ilse, Broekaert Eric, Schuyten Gilberte, De Temmerman Els
Department of Orthopedagogics, Henri Dunantlaan 2, B-9000 Gent, Belgium.
Lancet. 2004 Mar 13;363(9412):861-3. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(04)15734-6.
Worldwide, 300?000 children are currently used as child soldiers in armed conflicts. We interviewed 301 former child soldiers who had been abducted by the northern Ugandan rebellion movement Lord's Resistance Army. All the children were abducted at a young age (mean 12.9 years) and for a long time (mean 744 days). Almost all the children experienced several traumatic events (mean six events); 233 (77%) saw someone being killed, and 118 (39%) had to kill someone themselves. 71 children also filled in the impact of event scale--revised to assess their post-trauma stress reactions. 69 (97%) reported post-traumatic stress reactions of clinical importance. The death of a parent, especially of the mother, led to an important increase in score for avoidance symptoms (mother alive 16.4, mother not alive 21.6; p=0.04), with a high increase for girls (from 15.1 to 25.8), but almost no change for boys (from 17.7 to 17.4; p=0.02). Our findings shed light on the nature of severe trauma experienced by this group of children, and show a high rate of post-traumatic stress reactions.
在全球范围内，目前有30万名儿童在武装冲突中被用作儿童兵。我们采访了301名曾被乌干达北部叛乱组织圣主抵抗军绑架的前儿童兵。所有儿童均在年幼时（平均12.9岁）被绑架，且时间长达很久（平均744天）。几乎所有儿童都经历过数次创伤性事件（平均6次）；233人（77%）目睹有人被杀，118人（39%）自己不得不杀人。71名儿童还填写了修订后的事件影响量表，以评估他们的创伤后应激反应。69人（97%）报告有具有临床意义的创伤后应激反应。父母一方的死亡，尤其是母亲的死亡，则会导致回避症状得分显著增加（母亲健在时为16.4分，母亲不在时为21.6分；p = 0.04），女孩得分增加幅度很大（从15.1分增至25.8分），而男孩得分几乎没有变化（从17.7分增至17.4分；p = 0.02）。我们的研究结果揭示了这群儿童所经历的严重创伤的本质，并显示出创伤后应激反应的高发生率。
