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Meta-Analytic Review of Psychological Interventions for Children Survivors of Natural and Man-Made Disasters

  • Disaster Psychiatry (CS North and B Pfefferbaum, Section Editors)
  • Published:
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Abstract

Although many post-disaster interventions for children and adolescent survivors of disaster and terrorism have been created, little is known about the effectiveness of such interventions. Therefore, this meta-analysis assessed PTSD outcomes among children and adolescent survivors of natural and man-made disasters receiving psychological interventions. Aggregating results from 24 studies (total N = 2630) indicates that children and adolescents receiving psychological intervention fared significantly better than those in control or waitlist groups with respect to PTSD symptoms. Moderator effects were also observed for intervention package, treatment modality (group vs. individual), providers’ level of training, intervention setting, parental involvement, participant age, length of treatment, intervention delivery timing, and methodological rigor. Findings are discussed in detail with suggestions for practice and future research.

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Notes

  1. Mean d fully corrected for unreliability and range restriction permits interpretation as δ (or mean δ), and Var(d) is further refined by removal of variance attributable to those artifacts. As we do not correct for unreliability or range restriction, mean d denotes the mean uncorrected δ and we use d’ to represent our consideration of sampling error only in calculating residual variance [i.e., Var(d’) = Var(d) – Var(e)].

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Disclosures

This work was funded in part by the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute of Nursing Research, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (5 R25 MH070569) which established the Child and Family Disaster Research Training and Education Program in the Terrorism and Disaster Center (TDC) at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. TDC is a partner in the National Child Traumatic Stress Network and is funded in part by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (1 U79 SM57278).

Points of view in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network; the National Institute of Mental Health; the National Institute of Nursing Research; the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration; the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center; the University of Tulsa; or the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

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None of the authors of this manuscript report any potential or actual conflicts of interest.

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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The University of Tulsa Institute of Trauma, Adversity, and Injustice, Department of Psychology, 800 South Tucker Drive, Tulsa, OK, 74103, USA

    Elana Newman, Namik Kirlic, Robert Tett, Summer Nelson & Brandi Liles

  2. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, College of Medicine, Terrorism and Disaster Center, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, PO Box 26901, Williams Pavilion 3470, Oklahoma City, OK, 73126-0901, USA

    Betty Pfefferbaum

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  1. Elana Newman
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  2. Betty Pfefferbaum
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Correspondence to Elana Newman.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Disaster Psychiatry

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Newman, E., Pfefferbaum, B., Kirlic, N. et al. Meta-Analytic Review of Psychological Interventions for Children Survivors of Natural and Man-Made Disasters. Curr Psychiatry Rep 16, 462 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-014-0462-z

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