Population Prevalence of the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Subtype for Young Children in Nationwide Surveys of the British General Population and of Children in Care.
Authors
Goodall, Benjamin
Sharples, Olivia
Meiser-Stedman, Richard
Ford, Tamsin
Publication Date
2021-10Journal Title
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
ISSN
0890-8567
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Volume
60
Issue
10
Pages
1278-1287.e3
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
Physical Medium
Print-Electronic
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Hitchcock, C., Goodall, B., Sharples, O., Meiser-Stedman, R., Watson, P., Ford, T., & Dalgleish, T. (2021). Population Prevalence of the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Subtype for Young Children in Nationwide Surveys of the British General Population and of Children in Care.. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry, 60 (10), 1278-1287.e3. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2020.12.036
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating condition that when left untreated can have severe lifelong consequences for psychological, social, and occupational functioning. Initial conceptualizations of PTSD were centered on adult presentations. However, the instantiation of developmentally appropriate PTSD in young children (PTSD-YC) criteria, tailored to preschool (6 years old and younger) children, represents an important step toward identifying more young children experiencing distress. This study explored population-level prevalence of PTSD-YC indexed via an alternative algorithm for DSM-IV PTSD (AA-PTSD). METHOD: Representative population data were used to test whether application of AA-PTSD criteria, relative to the DSM-IV PTSD algorithm, increased identification of 5- to 6-year-old children with clinical needs in both the general population (n = 3,202) and among looked after children (ie, in Britain, foster children are called looked after children [more commonly referred to as children in care].) (n = 137), in whom the risk of mental health issues is greater. RESULTS: Notably, no 5- to 6-year-old children in the general population sample were diagnosed with PTSD using adult-based DSM-IV criteria. In contrast, AA-PTSD prevalence was 0.4% overall, rising to 5.4% in trauma-exposed children. In looked after children, overall PTSD prevalence rose from 1.2% when applying adult-based DSM-IV criteria to 14% when using AA-PTSD criteria. Of trauma-exposed looked after children, 2.7% met criteria for DSM-IV PTSD compared with 57.0% when applying AA-PTSD criteria. In both samples, use of the alternative algorithm to index PTSD-YC criteria markedly increased identification of children experiencing functional impairment owing to symptoms. CONCLUSION: Results demonstrate the utility of the PTSD-YC diagnosis beyond at-risk and treatment-seeking samples. Use of PTSD-YC criteria substantially improves identification of 5- to 6-year-old children burdened by PTSD at the population level.
Keywords
PTSD, PTSD in young children, epidemiology, preschool, prevalence, Child, Child, Preschool, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Ethnic Groups, Humans, Prevalence, Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic, Surveys and Questionnaires
Sponsorship
Medical Research Council (MC_UU_00005/14)
Economic and Social Research Council (ES/R010781/1)
Medical Research Council (MC_PC_17213)
Medical Research Council (MR/P017355/1)
Wellcome Trust (via University of Oxford) (107496/Z/15/Z?)
Medical Research Council (MC_UU_00005/4)
Medical Research Council (G108/625)
Embargo Lift Date
2100-01-01
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2020.12.036
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/331301
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