The memory-experience gap for PTSD symptoms: The correspondence between experience sampling and past month retrospective reports of traumatic stress symptoms

Background: The aim of the study was to determine the amount of trauma impact, post-traumatic stress symptoms and current psychopathological distress in a sample of former German children of World War II.Methods: 93 participants were recruited through the local press, and assessed using the modified Post-traumatic Diagnostic Scale (PDS) and the Symptom Checklist (SCL-90-R).Results: Subjects reported a high qualitative and quantitative degree of trauma exposure. 13.8% reported PTSD-related symptoms after the war, and 10.8% reported current symptoms. PTSD symptoms after World War II were significantly correlated with current psychopathological distress.Conclusions: In line with other studies, our data document a high degree of trauma exposure during warchildhood. In comparison with other studies on PTSD in warchildren, there is a persisting high prevalence of war-associated PTSD symptoms in this sample. Despite some methodological limitations, our data underline the urgent need for further studies on the ageing group of former children of World War II.

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Parents’ Retrospective Reports of Youth Psychological Responses to the Sniper Attacks in the Washington, DC, Area

Violence and Victims ◽

10.1891/0886-6708.26.1.116 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 26 (1) ◽

pp. 116-129 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Shannon R. Self-Brown ◽

Greta M. Massetti ◽

Jieru Chen ◽

Jeffrey Schulden

Keyword(s):

Psychological Distress ◽

Traumatic Stress ◽

Telephone Survey ◽

Washington Dc ◽

Older Children ◽

Stress Symptoms ◽

Random Digit ◽

Retrospective Reports ◽

Random Digit Dial ◽

History Of

A random-digit-dial telephone survey was conducted in May 2003, with 355 parents of children ages 2–17 years old, living in Washington, DC, or in the two surrounding counties during the October 2002 sniper shootings, to examine parent retrospective reports of child event-related psychological distress. An estimated 32% of parents reported that children experienced at least one psychological distress symptom related to sniper shootings. Older children, females, children with a history of trauma exposure prior to sniper attacks, children whose parents reported routine disruption as the result of attacks, children whose parents perceived them as at great risk for harm from sniper attacks, and those children whose parents reported more traumatic stress symptoms in response to attacks were at greatest risk for reported psychological distress.

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Stress-induced change in salience network coupling prospectively predicts trauma-related symptoms.

10.1101/2021.07.03.21259969 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Wei Zhang ◽

Reinoud Kaldewaij ◽

Mahur M Hashemi ◽

Saskia B.J. Koch ◽

Annika Smit ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Traumatic Stress ◽

Large Scale ◽

Acute Stress ◽

Trauma Exposure ◽

Ptsd Symptoms ◽

Post Traumatic Stress ◽

Police Recruits ◽

Stress Induction ◽

Stress Symptoms ◽

Post Traumatic

Substantial individual differences exist in how acute stress affects large-scale neurocognitive networks, including Salience (SN), Default Mode (DMN) and Central Executive Networks (CEN). These network-level changes upon acute stress may predict vulnerability to long-term stress effects, which can only be tested in prospective longitudinal studies. Using a longitudinal design, we investigated whether the magnitude of acute-stress induced functional connectivity changes (delta-FC) predicts the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms in a relatively resilient group of young police recruits that are known to be at high risk for trauma-exposure. Using resting-state fMRI, we measured acute-stress induced delta-FC in 190 police recruits before (baseline) and after trauma exposure during repeated emergency aid services (16-month follow-up). Delta-FC was then linked to the changes in perceived stress levels (PSS) and post-traumatic stress symptoms (PCL and CAPS). Weakened connectivity between the SN and DMN core regions upon acute stress induction at baseline predicted longitudinal increases in perceived stress level but not of post-traumatic stress symptoms, whereas increased coupling between the overall SN and anterior cerebellum was observed in participants with higher clinician-rated PTSD symptoms, particularly intrusion levels. All effects remained significant when controlling for trauma exposure-levels and cortisol stress-reactivity. Except these neural effects, neither hormonal nor subjective measures were relevant. The reconfiguration of large-scale neural networks upon acute stress induction is relevant for assessing and detecting risk and resilience factors for PTSD. This study highlights the SN connectivity-changes as a potential marker for trauma-related symptom-development, which is sensitive even in a relatively resilient sample.

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