Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Saint-Eloi University Hospital, Montpellier, France.
Center for Epidemiology and Population Health (CESP) INSERM U1018, Developmental Psychiatry Team, Paris-Saclay University, Paris, France.
Eur J Psychotraumatol. 2024;15(1):2299660. doi: 10.1080/20008066.2023.2299660. Epub 2024 Jan 29.
Parents have a significant role in supporting children who have been exposed to traumatic events. Little is known about parental experiences and needs in the wake of traumatic exposure, which could help in designing tailored early interventions. This qualitative study explored experiences, perceived needs, and factors impacting those needs being met, in parents of adolescents aged 11-16 years who had been exposed in the past 3 months to a potentially traumatic event, in the city of Montpellier, France. We purposively sampled 34 parents of 25 adolescents aged 11-16 years meeting the inclusion criteria and used semi-structured in-depth interviews. Thematic analysis was applied using a multistage recursive coding process. Parents lacked trauma-informed explanations to make sense of their child's reduced functioning. They experienced stigma attached to the victim label and were reluctant to seek help. School avoidance and lack of collaboration with schools were major obstacles experienced by parents. Parents trying to navigate conflicting needs fell into two distinct categories. Those who experienced distressing levels of shame and guilt tended to avoid discussing the traumatic event with their child, pressuring them to resume life as it was before, despite this perpetuating conflictual interactions. Others adapted by revisiting their beliefs that life should go on as it was before and by trying to come up with new functional routines, which improved their relationship with their child and helped them to restore a sense of agency and hope, but at the cost of questioning their parental role. Key domains of parental experiences could provide potential early intervention targets, such as psychoeducation on traumatic stress, representations about recovery and the victim status, parent-child communication, and involvement of schools and primary caregivers. Further research is needed to validate the impact of these domains in early post-traumatic interventions.
父母在支持经历创伤事件的儿童方面起着重要作用。创伤暴露后，父母的经历和需求鲜为人知，这有助于设计量身定制的早期干预措施。本定性研究探索了在法国蒙彼利埃市，过去 3 个月内经历过潜在创伤事件的 11-16 岁青少年的父母的经历、感知需求以及影响需求满足的因素。我们有意抽取了 34 名符合纳入标准的 25 名 11-16 岁青少年的父母，并使用半结构化深入访谈。使用多阶段递归编码过程进行主题分析。父母缺乏创伤知情解释，无法理解孩子功能下降的原因。他们经历了与受害者标签相关的耻辱感，不愿寻求帮助。学校回避和与学校缺乏合作是父母面临的主要障碍。父母试图应对相互冲突的需求，分为两类。那些经历了令人痛苦的羞耻和内疚感的人往往避免与孩子讨论创伤事件，迫使他们恢复以前的生活，尽管这会导致冲突性互动持续存在。其他人则通过重新审视他们的信念，即生活应该像以前一样继续，尝试制定新的常规，这改善了他们与孩子的关系，并帮助他们恢复了一种代理感和希望，但代价是质疑他们的父母角色。父母经历的关键领域可以提供潜在的早期干预目标，例如创伤应激的心理教育、关于康复和受害者身份的观念、父母-子女沟通以及学校和主要照顾者的参与。需要进一步研究来验证这些领域在创伤后早期干预中的影响。
