Bullying and Victimization in Childhood Linked to Psychiatric Disorders in Early Adulthood

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August 9, 2007 — Bullying and victimization during early school years may identify boys at risk for psychiatric disorders in early adulthood, according to the results of a study reported in the August issue of Pediatrics.”There have been no longitudinal cohort studies that examined the psychiatric outcomes in late adolescence or early adulthood of children who bully or are victimized in childhood,” write Andre Sourander, MD, from Turku University in Finland, and colleagues. “Generally, our knowledge of the continuities and discontinuities of childhood problems to early adulthood was based on a limited number of study cohorts.

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Child Abuse Linked to Migraine with Major Depression

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Research suggests that women who have suffered child abuse may be predisposed to a potentially debilitating combination of migraine accompanied by depression. It was found women with migraines and who were diagnosed with major depression were twice as likely as those with migraine alone to report having been sexually abused as a child. Furthermore, if…

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Trauma & Children’s Reactions

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Trauma is a sudden and threatening event for children, as it is for adults. Trauma disturbs basic assumptions that children have about the world, namely, that the world is a safe and controllable place. Often, among children, reactions to trauma are quite intense since they may feel helpless and often do not understand what is going on around them. Trauma also upsets the delicate balance of parent-child relationships; the child’s confidence that his parent will always be able to protect him may be disturbed, and the parent’s sense of his role as protector may be severely undermined.

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Abused Women Experience More Illness

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Women who have experienced abuse in childhood or as adults are far more likely than are other women to develop common illnesses, according to results of a Swedish study. “The manifestations and forms of violence vary in different settings, and virtually wherever this issue has been researched an under-recognized burden has been unveiled,” according to Dr. Gunilla Krantz from the Nordic School of Public Health in Goteborg and Dr. Per-Olof Ostergren from Malmo University Hospital in Sweden.

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PTSD & Comorbidities

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Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) commonly co-occurs with other psychiatric disorders. Data from epidemiologic surveys indicate that the vast majority of individuals with PTSD meet criteria for at least one other psychiatric disorder, and a substantial percentage have 3 or more other psychiatric diagnoses. A number of different hypothetical constructs have been posited to explain this high comorbidity; for example, the self-medication hypothesis has often been applied to understand the relationship between PTSD and substance use disorders.

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Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

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The fourth edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) defines posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a reaction to an event, either personally experienced or witnessed, that involves actual or threatened death or serious injury or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others.

As well, the response to the traumatic event must involve intense fear, helplessness, or horror.

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