Abstract
Children’s exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) and child abuse (CA) is strongly related to later psychological problems. Few studies exist on patients in child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) who have been singly or doubly exposed to IPV and/or CA. The overall aim of the current study was to compare self-reported psychiatric symptoms, post-trauma impact, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) diagnoses among CAMHS patients who had been singly or doubly exposed or had reported no family violence (NoFV). We expected to find more severe symptoms in both singly and doubly exposed patients than in the NoFV group and that double exposure was associated with more severe symptoms than single exposure (to IPV or CA). Finally, we expected to find that higher frequencies of exposure to IPV or CA were related to more psychiatric symptoms, greater post-trauma impact, and a higher likelihood of PTSD diagnosis. We compared psychiatric symptoms, post-trauma impact, and PTSD diagnosis in 578 patients aged 9–17 years with NoFV (n = 287), single exposure (n = 162), and double exposure (n = 129). The influence of gender, age, age of onset, frequency, and traumatic interpersonal events outside the family (IPE) were regressed on psychiatric symptoms, post-trauma impact, and PTSD diagnoses. Patients with double exposure had more severe symptoms than the NoFV group, and patients with single exposure had more trauma-related symptoms than the NoFV group. Double exposure was associated with more severe symptoms than single exposure, and frequency (of exposure to IPV and/or CA) and IPE influenced trauma symptoms and psychiatric symptoms, respectively. Exposure to more than one type of violence is associated with more severe symptoms, but other factors such as frequency of violent acts and IPE are important factors to focus on in future studies and clinical assessment.
Highlights
We restricted the sample to children old enough to self-report exposure to and impact of violence, and we narrowed family violence to those types most self-reported at intake: having been subjected to physical or sexual abuse and/or having been exposed to intimate partner violence (IPV)
The overall aim of the present study was to compare psychiatric symptoms, posttraumatic impact, and clinician-assigned post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) diagnoses among groups of patients in child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) who had not been exposed to family violence and those who had been singly or doubly exposed
We expected doubly exposed patients to have higher levels of symptoms, post-traumatic impact, and PTSD diagnoses than singly exposed children and more frequent exposures in both exposed groups to be related to more psychiatric symptoms, posttraumatic impact, and PTSD diagnoses
Summary
The main aim of the current study was to compare self-reported psychiatric symptoms, posttraumatic impact, and clinician-assigned PTSD diagnoses between CAMHS patients who had been singly or doubly exposed and patients who reported NoFV. Based on the results of prior studies in the general population and in CAMHS patients, our hypotheses were that compared with patients who reported NoFV, both singly and doubly exposed patients would. ∑ more often be assigned a PTSD diagnosis by clinicians. ∑ doubly exposed patients would have more psychiatric and posttraumatic symptoms than singly exposed, and would more often be assigned a PTSD diagnosis, and. ∑ more frequent experiences would be related to more psychiatric symptoms, posttraumatic impact, and PTSD diagnoses
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