When examining the long-reaching effects of trauma, it is essential to understand its circumstances. Whether a dangerous event occurred in childhood or adulthood, its influence may have drastically different consequences. Intuitively, the younger a person experiences something traumatic, it will have a more powerful impact on their development compared to an adult. Children and adolescents aren’t as mentally or emotionally equipped to deal with the death of a loved one, sexual or physical abuse, or domestic violence in the household. Exposure to violence is an especially terrible context, as it can be detrimental to a child’s future worldview, the way they operate in relationships, and how they cope with stress. When these phenomena do occur, …show more content…
In essence, exposure to violence at an adolescent stage can be a difficult stressor to alleviate and grow out of, especially when it can lead to the emergence of post-traumatic stress disorder later in adulthood. This topic is important because to help the individual and make sure they receive appropriate care, we must be able to investigate the circumstances of their trauma, the factors that both contribute (or relieve) the trauma, and how it may play a role in the incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder. Such questions must be asked and probed to deepen the level of understanding we have of post-traumatic stress disorder and its origins in early life. This paper will examine multiple empirical studies to see how exposure to violence in childhood and adolescence may affect the emergence of post-traumatic stress disorder in adulthood. Only then may the answers be possible to aid children in similar situations in contemporary society and provide adequate care to dispel the effects of this violence and the power of this condition as a …show more content…
(2019), which investigates exposure to family violence in childhood and its connections to post-traumatic stress symptoms in adulthood. In particular, they wanted to examine the relationship between participants’ memory of their history of physical violence and “psychological aggression” in a familial setting, contrasted by current posttraumatic stress symptoms in young adulthood. They also looked into the effect of self-efficacy on this connection. This exposure to family violence was measured by using the Conflict Tactics Scale and participants’ indicated interparental physical violence/psychological aggression and parental physical violence/psychological aggression during their childhood and adolescence. It was measured on an 8-point scale from 0 (never) up to 7 (daily). Posttrauma symptoms were measured using the Briere and Runtz Trauma Symptom Checklist using 30 different items, focusing on dissociation, anxiety, depression, and sleep disturbance. The study design used a self-administered large-scale questionnaire given to students during a class session for those who agreed to be part of the study. The students filled out the questionnaire and returned it in a sealed envelope, amounting to about 542 completed questionnaires. 516 students were part of the study, with about 91% of the participants identifying as female. The age range of participants was from 20 to 35 years old, with 91.5% identifying as Jewish