Abstract
Approximately 2 weeks after September 11th, adolescents from a national sample of households who were indirectly exposed to the terrorist attacks through the media completed a Web-based survey that assessed event-related acute stress symptoms. One year later, these adolescents (N = 142) and a randomly selected parent from their household completed a second survey. On average, adolescents reported mild to moderate acute stress symptoms shortly after the attacks and few trauma-related symptoms, low psychological distress and functional impairment, and moderate levels of positive affect 1 year later. After adjusting for acute stress symptoms reported after the attacks, greater parent-adolescent conflict was positively associated with adolescents' trauma symptoms, distress, and functional impairment at 1 year. Higher levels of adolescent positive affect at 1 year were associated with greater parental positive affect, greater parental support, and higher levels of parenting self-efficacy. Parents may play an important role in adolescents' responses to stressful national events.
Highlights
2 weeks after September 11th, adolescents from a national sample of households who were indirectly exposed to the terrorist attacks through the media completed a Web-based survey that assessed event-related acute stress symptoms
Prior research suggests that indirect exposure to major negative life events can elicit event-related trauma symptoms and general distress among children not directly exposed to the trauma
Interaction on Parent Gender × Perceived Parental Support on adolescents distress at 1 year post attacks (Wave 2). 2002; Schuster et al, 2001; Silver et al, 2002), the consequences of the September 11th attacks were not limited to adolescents who were directly exposed
Summary
2 weeks after September 11th, adolescents from a national sample of households who were indirectly exposed to the terrorist attacks through the media completed a Web-based survey that assessed event-related acute stress symptoms. One year later, these adolescents (N = 142) and a randomly selected parent from their household completed a second survey. From childhood to adolescence, threat appraisal becomes more differentiated to include appraisals of threat to self, other-related threat, and loss of desired objects and activities (Sheets, Sandler, & West, 1996) These cognitive differences between children and adolescents may lead to different response patterns among adolescents who are indirectly exposed to trauma. Several other researchers have reported no significant gender differences in children’s and adolescents’ distress levels following trauma exposure (La Greca, Silverman, Vernberg, & Prinstein, 1996; Silva et al, 2000)
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