Abstract
The study aims to determine children’s knowledge about their parents’ exposure to traumatic events and factors associated with such knowledge. Children (ages 9–16) and their parents with a range of exposures to trauma, including the 9/11 attack, answered questions about parental exposure to life threatening events. A child’s accurate knowledge about parental exposure was defined as an agreement between parent and child on lifetime presence or absence of traumatic events. The present study findings suggest that children were often unaware about their parents’ exposures to life threatening events. Knowledge about fathers’ exposure was more accurate when the child was older, fathers had direct exposure to 9/11, or had been a first responder. Children of mothers with depression were less likely to have accurate knowledge about their mothers’ exposure compared to children of non-depressed mothers. Overall, findings indicated that children are generally unaware of parental (particularly maternal) exposure to traumatic events. The next step is to determine how knowledge about parental trauma exposure impacts children.
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Acknowledgements
This study was supported by a grant from the NICHD (5R01 HD046786) to Christina W. Hoven, Principal Investigator. The authors would like to acknowledge the careful editorial support of Grace Bensimon.
Children of First Responder and WTC Evacuee Study (5R01 HD046786 PI: CW Hoven)
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Ethical Standards and Informed Consent
The study was approved by the Institutional Review Boards of the New York State Psychiatric Institute and of the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. “All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Informed consent (or assent for children) was obtained from all participants included in the study.
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Duarte, C.S., Eisenberg, R., Musa, G.J. et al. Children’s Knowledge about Parental Exposure to Trauma. Journ Child Adol Trauma 12, 31–35 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40653-017-0159-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40653-017-0159-7