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Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can be considered a job hazard after serving in combat, but almost 8% of Britons suffer from it by the time they reach the age of 18. Yet most do not receive treatment, despite an extremely high risk. of suicide.
Injuries among youth and the long-term effects on their mental health are a relatively unstudied area. Studies of the incidence of PTSD in children in the United States and Europe have used diagnostic criteria that are now considered obsolete. To solve this problem, Professor Andrea Danese of King's College London interviewed over 2,000 teenagers born in England and Wales at the age of 18.
In The Lancet Psychiatry, Danese reports that 31% of people in her sample experienced a traumatic event in their childhood, such as witnessing death or serious injury or sexual violence. Many people involved have suffered from "network trauma", where they have been touched by something that they have not witnessed personally and that has happened to a close person.
PTSD, which can result in nightmares about the event, avoiding things that could remind a person of trauma or misplaced guilt, has been identified in a quarter of those who have been traumatized, including three quarters of victims of sexual assault. PTSD often has significant effects on life by making it more difficult to study or maintain a job.
Most members of Danese's team diagnosed with PTSD had not received treatment. Only one in five consulted with a mental health professional and only one-third discussed his mental health with a general practitioner the previous year. It was despite three quarters of people with PTSD having at least one other mental health problem, most often a major depressive episode. Nearly half of them mutilated and one in five attempted suicide, 11 times more than those who did not experience trauma.
"Injuries to children are a public health problem, but trauma-related disorders often go unnoticed. Young people with PTSD are filling gaps in care and there is an urgent need to improve access to mental health services, "Danese said in a statement.
The first author, Dr. Stephanie Lewis, pointed out that the consequences of PTSD in children become "more and more difficult to assess and treat" over time.
The participants were all twins, identical and not identical, drawn from an ongoing study on the development of twins. They had been interviewed four times between the ages of five and twelve and had asked their parents and their questions useful questions for this research. There is no obvious reason to think that twins are more likely to suffer from PTSD than other children.
Among the most common causes of injury being much more common in the United States, it is likely that the frequency of these injuries is even higher from one side of the Atlantic to the other.
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