ARTICLES
Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms in Parentally Bereaved Children and Adolescents

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ABSTRACT

Objective

To compare parentally bereaved children with a disaster comparison group and a nontrauma control group on measures of emotional adjustment.

Method

Children and adolescents who had lost a parent (n = 39), had experienced a tornado disaster (n = 69), or were coping with an ongoing social or academic stressor (n = 118) completed measures of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, anxiety, and depression. Risk factors for symptoms among the bereaved children also were evaluated.

Results

Parentally bereaved children reported significantly more PTSD symptoms than the disaster and nontrauma control groups. Among the bereaved children, girls, younger children, and children living with a surviving parent who scored high on a measure of posttraumatic stress reported more symptoms.

Conclusion

Children and adolescents who have lost a parent could be vulnerable to PTSD symptoms.

Section snippets

Bereaved Participants

Parentally bereaved youths ranging from 7 to 17 years of age were recruited from 12 public schools located in suburban communities. Exclusionary criteria included (1) parental death occurring less than 6 months ago, (2) history of psychiatric disturbance or treatment, and (3) exposure to a natural disaster. These criteria were selected to control for initial bereavement reactions (Siegel et al., 1996), psychiatric disturbance, and exposure to natural disasters. School counselors who were

Group Differences

An ANOVA revealed no significant age differences between the bereaved, tornado, and nontrauma groups (see Table 1 for statistics). Chi-square tests revealed no significant group differences for sex, ethnicity, and parent's job type, but there was a significant difference for living in a reconstituted family, with more of the bereaved children living with a biological parent and a stepparent (χ22 = 7.20, p < .05). All 3 groups scored within normal limits on the CDI and the RCMAS and showed no

DISCUSSION

The death of a parent in childhood is a profound experience that can heighten the unpredictability of life and increase a child's risk for PTSD symptoms (Gibbs, 1989, Mireault and Bond, 1992). This was supported by parentally bereaved children reporting significantly more symptoms in the present study than children who experienced a fatal tornado or who were coping with a daily stressor. Other studies have revealed PTSD symptoms in bereaved children, but none have compared the children's

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      Only a handful of studies in the fields of disaster management and bereavement in general have reported the prevalence rates of PTSD and depression among bereaved survivors following sudden unexpected death of loved ones (Fullerton, Ursano, Kao, & Bharitya, 1999; Goenjian et al., 2009; Kristensen, Weisaeth, & Heir, 2009; Kuo et al., 2003; Schut, de Keijser, Van den Bout, & Dijkhuis, 1991; Yuan et al., 2009). Even so, these studies were mainly conducted among general bereaved adults with different types of bereavement including loss of a parent, spouse, child, or sibling (Kristensen et al., 2009; Kuo et al., 2003; Morina, Rudari, Bleichhardt, & Prigerson, 2010; Yuan et al., 2009), bereaved children who have lost their parents (Goenjian et al., 2009; Stoppelbein & Greening, 2000), or bereaved adults who have lost their spouse due to accidents (Schut et al., 1991). The estimated rates of PTSD and depression among older bereaved people facing spousal loss have also been reported in the literature (Elklit & O‘Connor, 2005; O‘Connor, 2010).

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