A new study published in Translational Psychiatry reveals that 2.17% of preadolescent children aged 9 to 10 years old in the United States have experienced post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at some point in their lives. Factors including sexual minority status and previous history of PTSD were discovered to increase the risk of the disorder, and alarmingly more than a third of the participants did not receive any mental health treatment.
While PTSD has been extensively studied in adults and adolescents, little is known about its prevalence and impact on children aged 9 to 10, with previous studies being restricted in only analyzing a small sample of individuals.
The current research, led by Rachel Levin from the University of Rochester and Richard Liu from the Massachusetts General Hospital, aimed to address this gap by providing a detailed analysis of PTSD in preadolescents, including prevalence, risk factors, long-term health impacts, and treatment utilization.
The researchers utilized data from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, encompassing a representative sample of 11,875 children from 21 sites across the United States. Data was collected from parent and child reports of sociodemographic characteristics, trauma, psychiatric diagnoses, and treatment.
After performing statistical analyses, Levin and Liu discovered that 2.17% of the children had PTSD at some time in their lives, known as lifetime PTSD. Sexual minority status (identifying as gay, lesbian or questioning), racial identity (Black or multiracial), having parents who had completed some college, having unmarried parents, and family economic insecurity were identified as significant risk factors for PTSD.
The researchers highlighted, “sexual minority status had the largest effect, and the lifetime prevalence of PTSD in this group was nearly three times that for the general population. It has not been previously assessed in relation to PTSD in individuals younger than 12 years old, despite research showing differences in sexual orientation begin to emerge at eight years old This finding suggests that sexual minority individuals in the age group potentially most vulnerable to PTSD are also the least studied.”
Several psychiatric disorders were found to be correlated with PTSD, including major depressive disorder, anxiety disorder, specific phobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and eating disorders. Notably, separation anxiety was the most strongly associated with PTSD. Having a history of PTSD also tended to predict the development of a new psychiatric disorder following PTSD remission.
Concerningly, 37% of affected children did not receive any psychiatric treatment. “Untreated PTSD in youth can lead to increased healthcare costs, decreased performance in school, and lower rates of high school graduation. Research has shown that these impairments carry into functional impairments in young adulthood, including isolation, social loneliness and not working or in school,” the authors note.
Despite the study’s strengths, it is limited by its cross-sectional design (where data is collected from a population at a single point in time) and the low prevalence of current PTSD, which are cases of the disorder that are active and meet the diagnostic criteria at the time of assessment.
The study, “Post-traumatic stress disorder in a national sample of preadolescent children 9 to 10 years old: Prevalence, correlates, clinical sequelae, and treatment utilization,” was authored by Rachel Y. Levin and Richard T. Liu.