Kids in Mind Research: Mater Center for Service Research in Mental Health, Level 2, Community Services Building, Annerley Road, South Brisbane, Qld 4101, Australia.
Aust N Z J Psychiatry. 2010 Apr;44(4):384-9. doi: 10.3109/00048670903489916.
The aim of the present study was to investigate whether parent report of family resilience predicted children's disaster-induced post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and general emotional symptoms, independent of a broad range of variables including event-related factors, previous child mental illness and social connectedness.
A total of 568 children (mean age = 10.2 years, SD = 1.3) who attended public primary schools, were screened 3 months after Cyclone Larry devastated the Innisfail region of North Queensland. Measures included parent report on the Family Resilience Measure and Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ)-emotional subscale and child report on the PTSD Reaction Index, measures of event exposure and social connectedness.
Sixty-four students (11.3%) were in the severe-very severe PTSD category and 53 families (28.6%) scored in the poor family resilience range. A lower family resilience score was associated with child emotional problems on the SDQ and longer duration of previous child mental health difficulties, but not disaster-induced child PTSD or child threat perception on either bivariate analysis, or as a main or moderator variable on multivariate analysis (main effect: adjusted odds ratio (OR(adj)) = 0.57, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.13-2.44). Similarly, previous mental illness was not a significant predictor of child PTSD in the multivariate model (OR(adj) = 0.75, 95%CI = 0.16-3.61).
In this post-disaster sample children with existing mental health problems and those of low-resilience families were not at elevated risk of PTSD. The possibility that the aetiological model of disaster-induced child PTSD may differ from usual child and adolescent conceptualizations is discussed.
本研究旨在探讨家庭韧性报告是否可以预测儿童因灾难引发的创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）和一般情绪症状，而与广泛的变量（包括事件相关因素、先前儿童精神疾病和社会联系）无关。
共有 568 名儿童（平均年龄=10.2 岁，SD=1.3）参加了北昆士兰州因拉里飓风袭击而受灾的公立小学，在 3 个月后进行了筛查。测量包括家长对家庭韧性量表和困难儿童问卷（SDQ）-情绪分量表的报告，以及儿童对 PTSD 反应指数、事件暴露和社会联系的测量。
64 名学生（11.3%）处于严重-非常严重 PTSD 类别，53 个家庭（28.6%）得分处于较差的家庭韧性范围。家庭韧性得分较低与儿童在 SDQ 上的情绪问题以及先前儿童心理健康问题持续时间较长有关，但在单变量分析或多变量分析（主要效应：调整后的优势比（OR(adj)）=0.57，95%置信区间（CI）=0.13-2.44）中，与灾难引起的儿童 PTSD 或儿童威胁感知无关。同样，先前的精神疾病在多变量模型中也不是儿童 PTSD 的显著预测因素（OR(adj)）=0.75，95%CI=0.16-3.61）。
在这个灾后样本中，有现有心理健康问题的儿童和家庭韧性较低的儿童并没有处于 PTSD 的高风险中。讨论了灾难引起的儿童 PTSD 的病因学模型可能与通常的儿童和青少年概念不同的可能性。
