What's a Stressor for a Child?

Although the DSM-IV's diagnostic criterion A for post-traumatic stress disorder requires the presence of an extreme stressor (e.g., witnessed or threatened violent death or threatened serious injury to self or others), disagreement exists about the link between lower-magnitude stressors and PTSD symptoms, especially in children. To learn more, researchers followed 1420 children from age 9, 11, or 13 through age 16 in a longitudinal, community-based study.

Parents and children were queried separately (6674 pairs of interviews) regarding the occurrence in the previous 3 months of extreme stressors and 15 less-extreme events, such as death of a loved one, parental separation, moving, or breaking up with a best friend. The children were also ass…