Farley Tatjana M, McWey Lenore M, Ledermann Thomas
Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL United States.
Child Youth Care Forum. 2022;51(4):795-810. doi: 10.1007/s10566-021-09652-y. Epub 2021 Sep 29.
Youth in foster care may demonstrate high levels of aggression and thought problems. There is a growing trend to consider mental health symptoms of youth involved with the foster care system from a developmental trauma perspective.
The aim of this study was to test if trauma, race, age, and gender predicted variability in thought problems and aggression for youth in foster care.
The sample ( = 303) included youth in out-of-home placements with a mean age of 14 years, a diverse racial demographic, and almost an equal percentage of males and females. Participants were assessed over three waves using a series of multilevel growth curve models.
Results indicated significant decreases in thought problems and aggression and youth with higher levels of trauma reported higher initial levels and swifter decreases of both thought problems and aggression over time.
While trauma was associated with aggression and thought problems, results found that youth demonstrated significant decreases in aggression and thought problems over time. A better understanding of the long-term effects of trauma on thought problems and aggression of youth in foster care is needed. While our findings suggest foster care may be protective in fostering resilience, additional research on the nature of potential positive effects of foster care on aggression and thought problems is suggested.
寄养儿童可能表现出较高水平的攻击性和思维问题。从发展性创伤的角度来考虑寄养系统中儿童的心理健康症状这一趋势正在不断增长。
本研究的目的是检验创伤、种族、年龄和性别是否能预测寄养儿童思维问题和攻击性的变化。
样本（n = 303）包括家庭外安置的儿童，平均年龄为14岁，种族构成多样，男女比例几乎相等。使用一系列多层次增长曲线模型对参与者进行了三次评估。
结果表明，思维问题和攻击性显著减少，创伤水平较高的儿童报告称，随着时间的推移，思维问题和攻击性的初始水平较高且下降更快。
虽然创伤与攻击性和思维问题有关，但结果发现，随着时间的推移，儿童的攻击性和思维问题显著减少。需要更好地了解创伤对寄养儿童思维问题和攻击性的长期影响。虽然我们的研究结果表明寄养可能有助于培养恢复力，但建议对寄养对攻击性和思维问题潜在积极影响的性质进行更多研究。
