Structure and correlates of post-traumatic stress disorder and related disorders in children and adolescents

Background: Traumatic exposure is common among children and adolescents. Following trauma, a sizeable portion of youths go on to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD has far-reaching impacts on child and adolescent development, yet to date there remains significant knowledge gaps around what factors predict PTSD and related disorders within this age group, and what symptom profiles trauma-exposed youths tend to present with. Methods: The present portfolio comprises two pieces of work. First, a systematic review was carried out to investigate the relationship between anxiety sensitivity and PTSD among children and adolescents. Second, an empirical analysis of pre-existing data was conducted to examine PTSD and complex PTSD (CPTSD) presentations as well as their psychosocial and cognitive correlates among community adolescents. Results: Anxiety sensitivity is strongly associated with PTSD among children and adolescents. 2.3%, 5.6% and 10% of adolescents were found to meet the criteria for PTSD, CPTSD and disturbances in self-organisation (DSO) respectively. Latent class analysis (LCA) produced a CPTSD class, a DSO class and a healthy class but not a PTSD class. Finally, when compared to adolescents with DSO and healthy adolescents, those with CPTSD were more likely to be female and tended to endorse more/higher overall trauma types, interpersonal trauma types, depression, anxiety and maladaptive cognitive processes. Conclusion: The combined results of the systematic review and the empirical study corroborated existing cognitive models of anxiety and PTSD. They also had significant implications on the assessment, management and intervention of PTSD and related disorders in children and adolescents