Mass Trauma in Children: Expanding the Concept of Exposure in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Purpose Of Review: This review examined the concept of exposure in children in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Recognizing the varied effects of the pandemic on children across a range of experiences, the review departed from the frequently-used analytic framework based on the stressor criterion for a diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Recent Findings: In addition to the more traditional types of exposure such as personal infection, illness or death of loved ones, and the experiences of children whose parents were essential workers, the review identified experiences among children in the general population as they adjusted to public health mandates, consumed pandemic media coverage, and dealt with the many changes in their daily lives.

Practice Elements Used in Child Mass Trauma Interventions: A Systematic Review.

Purpose Of Review: The goals of this analysis were to identify practice elements frequently used in child mass trauma interventions and to determine if these elements differed across interventions with respect to type of event addressed.

Recent Findings: The most frequent elements used were psychoeducation for the child, affect modulation, relaxation, cognitive techniques, exposure, support networking, and narrative. The most frequently used elements were similar for political violence and natural disaster interventions but differed for COVID-19 interventions.

Learning from Hindsight: Examining Autonomic, Inflammatory, and Endocrine Stress Biomarkers and Mental Health in Healthy Terrorism Survivors Many Years Later.

Introduction: Terrorism and trauma survivors often experience changes in biomarkers of autonomic, inflammatory and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis assessed at various times. Research suggests interactions of these systems in chronic stress.

Study Objective: This unprecedented retrospective study explores long-term stress biomarkers in three systems in terrorism survivors.

Children's Sleep and Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Purpose Of Review: The COVID-19 pandemic and protracted home confinement required adjustments to schedules and routines generating concern about children's sleep. This review describes general considerations regarding children's sleep, changes and disturbances in their sleep during the pandemic, and the association of sleep measures with health and psychological outcomes in general and in the context of the pandemic.

Recent Findings: A number of studies found an increase in the duration of children's sleep with later bedtimes and waketimes for some children.

Tobacco and Illicit Drug Use and Drug Use Disorders Among Employees of Businesses Affected by the 9/11 Attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City.

Objective: To study the New York City area population after the September 11, 2001, 9/11 attacks, focusing on tobacco and drug use and drug use disorders. An abundance of research has identified the important mental health sequelae stemming from exposure to disasters, especially vulnerability to the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major depressive disorder (MDD). There also is a body of literature on the association of disaster exposure with alcohol use/misuse, but far less research on tobacco and other drug use/disorders.

Parental Challenges During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Psychological Outcomes and Risk and Protective Factors.

Purpose Of Review: This review examines the challenges faced by parents in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, their emotional reactions, and risk and protective factors in their adjustment. Clinical and policy implications are discussed, and recommendations for future study are offered.

Recent Findings: The literature reveals numerous stresses experienced by parents during the pandemic.

Psychometric properties of the Korean adaptation of the communities advancing resilience toolkit (CART) assessment survey.

Aims: This study aimed to establish a cross-cultural adaptation of the Communities Advancing Resilience Toolkit (CART) assessment survey for Korean communities (K-CART) and evaluated its psychometric properties of K-CART.

Design: A cross-sectional study design was used.

Methods: A forward and backward translation of the CART was conducted.

Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior in Children During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Implications for Mental Health.

Purpose Of Review: This paper examines children's physical activity and sedentary behavior and associated psychological outcomes coincident with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Recent Findings: Generally, the research has found decreased physical activity and increased sedentary behavior, both of which are associated with various psychological outcomes. The research on sedentary behavior has focused on screen time with minimal consideration of other sedentary behaviors or of specific physical activities or the context in which these behaviors occurred.

Health-related quality of life among older adults who experienced the Pohang earthquake in South Korea: A cross-sectional survey.

Background: Earthquakes are global natural disasters and can cause loss of property, livelihood and affect human health. A 5.4 magnitude earthquake, the Pohang earthquake, occurred in South Korea in 2017.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Children in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

With its global spread and protracted threat, mounting morbidity and mortality, pervasive social and economic ramifications, vital public health measures, and often compromised risk communication, the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the risk to children's emotional health relative to more common biological, natural, and man-made events. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and PTSD symptoms have been the primary focus of child disaster mental health research. The adult literature has questioned the appropriateness of focusing on PTSD in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, because most of the extensive adult research on PTSD has not appropriately assessed all diagnostic criteria for the disorder.

Inconclusive Findings in Studies of the Link Between Media Coverage of Mass Trauma and Depression in Children.

Purpose Of Review: This paper reports a review of the empirical research examining the association between mass trauma media contact and depression in children, the factors that may influence the association, and the difficulties encountered in the study of media effects on depression.

Recent Findings: All of the included studies assessed general population samples. Pre-COVID-19 research focused primarily on television coverage alone or on multiple media forms including television, while COVID-19 media studies examined various media forms including social media.

Challenges for Child Mental Health Raised by School Closure and Home Confinement During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Purpose Of Review: The closure of schools during the COVID-19 pandemic has interrupted the education of children worldwide. This paper reviews the psychological effects of this action on children and the impact on school-based services.

Recent Findings: Emerging epidemiologic findings have generated an intense debate about the need for, and potential benefit of, school closure in the context of COVID-19.

Psychosocial Effects on US Government Personnel of Exposure to the 1998 Terrorist Attack on the US Embassy in Nairobi.

: The mental health effects of major terrorist attacks on diplomatic government personnel have not been well studied. This study examined the psychiatric and psychosocial effects of the 1998 terrorist bombing of the US Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, on US government personnel exposed to the bombing. : At 8-10 months after the bombing, 179 US government employees (53 Americans, 126 Kenyans, 53% male, age mean = 40.

The Association between Child and Parent Psychiatric Disorders in Families Exposed to Flood and/or Dioxin.

Associations of disaster mental health sequelae between children and their parents have been demonstrated, but not using full diagnostic assessment. This study examined children and their parents after a series of disasters in 1982 to investigate associations of their psychiatric outcomes. Members of 169 families exposed to floods and/or dioxin or no disaster were assessed in 1986-1987 with structured diagnostic interviews.

Associations between News Media Coverage of the 11 September Attacks and Depression in Employees of New York City Area Businesses.

Research has examined the association between contact with media coverage of mass trauma events and various psychological outcomes, including depression. Disaster-related depression research is complicated by the relatively high prevalence of the major depressive disorder in general populations even without trauma exposure. The extant research is inconclusive regarding associations between disaster media contact and depression outcomes, in part, because most studies have not distinguished diagnostic and symptomatic outcomes, differentiated postdisaster incidence from prevalence, or considered disaster trauma exposures.

A Critical Review of Effective Child Mass Trauma Interventions: What We Know and Do Not Know from the Evidence.

Over the last 20 years, numerous interventions have been developed and evaluated for use with children exposed to mass trauma with six publications reporting meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials of child mass trauma interventions using inactive controls to examine intervention effects on posttraumatic stress, depression, anxiety, and functional impairment. The current report reviews the results of these meta-analytic studies to examine the status of the evidence for child mass trauma mental health interventions and to evaluate potential moderators of intervention effect and implications for practice. The meta-analyses reviewed for the current report revealed a small to medium overall effect of interventions on posttraumatic stress, a non-statistically significant to small overall effect on depression, a non-statistically significant overall effect on anxiety, and a small overall effect on functional impairment.

Problems and Needs Persist for Oklahoma City Bombing Survivors Many Years Later.

Background: This study assesses long-term physical and emotional symptoms and unmet needs in direct survivors of the 1995 Oklahoma City terrorist bombing 18 ½ years after the event.

Methods: A telephone questionnaire assessed psychiatric symptoms, health problems and coping strategies in 138 terrorism survivors (of whom 80% were physically injured) from a state registry of directly exposed persons, and 171 non-exposed community controls. Structured survey questions measured psychiatric symptoms, posttraumatic growth, general health problems and health care utilization.

The association between parent-reported child disaster reactions and posttraumatic stress disorder in parent survivors of disasters and terrorism.

Background: Disaster studies establishing an association between parent and child disaster reactions usually discuss results in terms of the influence of parents on their children. This study explores a complementary interpretation of this association by focusing on the potential influence of children on their parents.

Methods: Investigations of 5 disasters and terrorist events included a combined sample of 556 survivor parents and their 1,066 children.

Media Contact and Posttraumatic Stress in Employees of New York City Area Businesses after the September 11 Attacks.

Objective: The objective of this study was to examine associations between media contact and posttraumatic stress in a sample with a large number of individuals who were directly exposed to the September 11, 2001 (9/11) attacks and to compare outcomes in exposed and unexposed participants.

Methods: Structured interviews and questionnaires were administered to a volunteer sample of 254 employees of New York City businesses 35 months after the attacks to document disaster trauma exposures, posttraumatic stress outcomes, and media contact and reactions.

Results: Media variables were not associated with psychopathological outcomes in exposed participants, but media contact in the first week after the attacks and feeling moderately/extremely bothered by graphic 9/11 media images were associated with re-experiencing symptoms in both the exposed and unexposed participants.

The Effect of Interventions on Functional Impairment in Youth Exposed to Mass Trauma: a Meta-Analysis.

This study examined the benefit of psychosocial interventions on functional impairment in youth exposed to mass trauma. A random effects meta-analysis was used to estimate the overall effect in 15 intervention trials identified through a literature review. The moderator analysis examined how the effect of intervention differed across types of populations receiving the intervention (targeted or non-targeted samples), characteristics of intervention delivery (individual or group application and number of sessions), and the context of intervention administration (country income level).

Children's Reactions to Media Coverage of War.

Purpose Of Review: This paper reviews research on the effects of contact with war media coverage on psychological outcomes in children.

Recent Findings: Children's contact with media coverage of war is pervasive and is associated with numerous outcomes and with their parents' reactions. Younger children are more affected by news stories with visual cues, while older children are more distressed by stories about actual threat.

Children's Exposure to Single Incidents of Terrorism: Perspectives Over 25 Years Since the Oklahoma City Bombing.

Purpose Of Review: This paper traces advances in our knowledge about children's exposure and reactions to terrorist events over the last 25 years, beginning with the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and offers observations about cross-cutting issues including implications for services.

Recent Findings: Direct and indirect interpersonal exposures have been examined in community samples and in samples of children selected because of their event experiences. Despite its present exclusion from the stressor criterion for a diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder, considerable research has documented an association between children's initial subjective reaction and outcomes.