ATLANTA – Parental distress can prolong and worsen a child's experience after a shared traumatic event, according to a survey of 183 parents who survived the tsunami that struck Southeast Asia in 2004.
The degree of parental exposure to the tsunami did not appear to be a significant factor in the distress experienced by their offspring. However, a parental posttraumatic stress reaction to the event significantly predicted posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in their child at 6 months (odds ratio, 3.89), Dr. Grete Dyb said.
“The first thing a child would do is look to the parent to see if they are scared [and think] if they run, I will run,” Dr. Dyb said at the annual meeting of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies.
Children whose parents hadwa low level of symptoms were resilient even if they had high exposure to an event, Dr. Dyb said.
There were approximately 4,000 Norwegians, including about 1,000 children, on vacation in Southeast Asia on Dec. 26, 2004. The tsunami killed more than 200,000 people, including 58 Norwegians adults and 26 children.
Dr. Dyb and her colleagues interviewed 183 parents about their reactions and experiences, and those of their 319 children and adolescents, 6 months after they returned to Norway.
Parents completed the Child Stress Reaction Checklist on behalf of their children. The level of symptoms was rather low in offspring at 6 months, including 22% who were nonsymptomatic, said Dr. Dyb, a researcher at the Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Studies in Oslo.
Overall, parents reported a low mean level of symptoms, although only 2% said they were nonsymptomatic.
“But we did see a dose-response between objective exposure and subjective response,” Dr. Dyb said. A total of 86 parents and 153 children were in physical danger that day; including 35 parents and 45 children caught by the rushing water. A total 27 parents and 24 children were physically injured. Another 112 parents and 162 children witnessed serious physical injuries in others.
A total of 30 parents and 62 children were separated from their families during the natural disaster.
Child objective exposure also was a predictor of PTSD (OR, 0.79). This factor contributed significantly to PTSD variance in children, Dr. Dyb said.
Sixty percent of respondents were mothers, and 52% of their children and adolescents were girls. The mean age of children was 12 years (range, 6–18 years). The study included siblings in 107 families.
A meeting attendee commented that parents might have hidden their immediate reactions to the disaster to protect their child. Dr. Dyb said that was possible, and added: “Immediate reactions in children were reported by parents, so we worried also about their capacity to report how scared their children were.”
Another attendee suggested interviewing children about their parents' reaction. “We didn't ask children about that–that we should have done,” Dr. Dyb said.
Dr. Dyb said she has another study coming out that demonstrates the child's age plays a role in development of PTSD symptoms. “We had a range of age and development in these children [in the current study]. We thought we had big sample, but we needed more power to look at the age effect.”