Chasson Miriam, Ben-Shlomo Shirley, Lyons-Ruth Karlen
Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Tel Aviv, Israel.
Trauma Violence Abuse. 2025 Mar 18:15248380251325222. doi: 10.1177/15248380251325222.
War-related trauma has detrimental effects on millions of individuals worldwide, including infants, toddlers, and their parents. Among various adverse outcomes, this trauma may significantly disrupt the essential sense of security crucial for fostering a healthy early parent-child relationship. Yet, research on the effects of war-related trauma on parent-child relationships remains limited. This study aimed to bridge this gap by synthesizing evidence from empirical studies focused on war-related trauma and early parent-child relationship outcomes from 0 to 3 years. Studies were identified by searching across multiple databases. The inclusion criteria encompassed studies examining the effects of exposure to war, armed conflict, or terrorism, focusing on the parent-young child relationship, published in English, peer-reviewed, and accessible. Eleven studies, published in 23 articles, met these criteria. The research findings revealed various impacts on the parent-child relationship due to exposure to war-related trauma. Notably, parents' emotional distress and post-traumatic stress disorder, rather than their direct trauma exposure, were associated with adverse parent-child relational outcomes within the parent-child relationship, such as parents' insensitive, inconsistent, hostile, and anxious behaviors toward their children, as well as children's vigilance and unresponsive behaviors toward their parents. This research indicates various ways that war-related trauma may impact early parent-child relationships, highlighting directions for future research and offering insights that could assist in developing trauma-informed interventions focused on parent-child dyads experiencing war-related adversity.
与战争相关的创伤对全球数百万个人产生不利影响，包括婴儿、幼儿及其父母。在各种不良后果中，这种创伤可能会严重扰乱对建立健康的早期亲子关系至关重要的基本安全感。然而，关于与战争相关的创伤对亲子关系影响的研究仍然有限。本研究旨在通过综合来自实证研究的证据来填补这一空白，这些实证研究聚焦于与战争相关的创伤以及0至3岁儿童早期亲子关系的结果。通过在多个数据库中进行检索来识别相关研究。纳入标准包括研究战争、武装冲突或恐怖主义暴露的影响，聚焦于亲子关系，以英文发表、经过同行评审且可获取。11项研究（发表于23篇文章中）符合这些标准。研究结果揭示了与战争相关的创伤暴露对亲子关系的各种影响。值得注意的是，父母的情绪困扰和创伤后应激障碍，而非他们直接的创伤暴露，与亲子关系中的不良亲子关系结果相关，例如父母对孩子表现出不敏感、不一致、敌意和焦虑的行为，以及孩子对父母的警惕和无反应行为。这项研究表明了与战争相关的创伤可能影响早期亲子关系的各种方式，突出了未来研究的方向，并提供了有助于制定针对经历与战争相关逆境的亲子二元组的创伤知情干预措施的见解。
