Wamser-Nanney Rachel, Campbell Claudia L
Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri-St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, USA.
J Trauma Stress. 2022 Apr;35(2):398-408. doi: 10.1002/jts.22751. Epub 2021 Oct 28.
Caregivers and children often diverge in their reports of children's trauma-related symptoms, and this discordance has been linked with children's behavioral difficulties and poorer treatment outcomes. Knowledge regarding what factors may be related to discordance is limited, and maternal support in relation to trauma-related symptom agreement has yet to be investigated. The aim of the present study was to examine the associations between discordance and both maternal emotional support and blame/doubt in caregivers' and children's reports of trauma-related symptoms in sexually abused children. Participants were treatment-seeking, sexually abused children (N = 122) aged 8-12 years (M = 9.45 years, SD = 1.09; 70.5% female, 57.4% White) and their nonoffending caregivers. Low intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) indicated the presence of significant discordance across symptom types, with caregivers reporting higher levels of trauma-related difficulties, ICCs = -.21-.22. Older children were more likely to disclose higher levels of anger and sexual concerns than younger children, βs = .18-.33. Children's gender, race, and relationship to their caregiver were not related to symptom discordance. Further, maternal emotional support and blame/doubt were not associated with caregiver-child concordance for any examined difficulties. Assessment of both caregivers' and children's perceptions of trauma-related symptoms is vital given the likelihood of discordance in child and caregiver reports of symptom levels. Although maternal emotional support and blame/doubt may not be linked to concordance with regard to trauma-related difficulties, child age should further be considered as a potentially important factor in understanding caregiver-child symptom concordance.
在儿童创伤相关症状的报告方面，照顾者和儿童的说法常常存在差异，这种不一致与儿童的行为问题及较差的治疗效果有关。关于哪些因素可能与这种不一致相关的知识有限，而且尚未对母亲在创伤相关症状一致性方面的支持情况进行研究。本研究的目的是考察在遭受性虐待儿童的创伤相关症状报告中，照顾者与儿童之间的不一致与母亲的情感支持以及照顾者的指责/怀疑之间的关联。研究参与者为寻求治疗的8至12岁遭受性虐待儿童（N = 122，平均年龄M = 9.45岁，标准差SD = 1.09；70.5%为女性，57.4%为白人）及其非犯罪照顾者。组内相关系数（ICC）较低表明不同症状类型之间存在显著不一致，照顾者报告的创伤相关困难程度更高，ICC = -0.21至-0.22。年龄较大的儿童比年龄较小的儿童更有可能披露更高水平的愤怒和性方面的担忧，β值为0.18至0.33。儿童的性别、种族及其与照顾者的关系与症状不一致无关。此外，对于任何所考察的困难，母亲的情感支持以及指责/怀疑与照顾者-儿童之间的一致性均无关联。鉴于儿童和照顾者在症状水平报告中存在不一致的可能性，对照顾者和儿童对创伤相关症状的认知进行评估至关重要。尽管母亲的情感支持以及指责/怀疑可能与创伤相关困难的一致性无关，但在理解照顾者-儿童症状一致性方面，儿童年龄应进一步被视为一个潜在的重要因素。
