Thirty-six children and their mothers participated in the study. The participants were recruited from the waiting rooms of the Primary Care, Obstetrics Gynecology or Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Outpatient Clinic (CAPOC) at the Grady Health System in Atlanta, GA. Inclusion criteria for the mothers were: 18–65 years of age, primary caretaker of a 6 to 13 year old child, willing and able to sign informed consent; exclusion criteria were active psychosis, bipolar disorder, suicide ideation, and significant medical illness. Eligible child participants were between 6 and 13 years of age willing to participate; exclusion criteria were autism spectrum disorders, bipolar or psychotic disorders, or cognitive disability. Prior to their participation, all mothers signed informed consent as well as parental permission for their children, and the children provided study assent approved by the Emory University Institutional Review Board and the Grady Research Oversight Committee.
The Structured Clinical Interview for DSM IV (First, Spitzer, Williams, & Gibbon, 1995 ) was administered to all mothers. In addition to the diagnostic interview, all participants completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), the PTSD Symptom Scale (PSS), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and the Traumatic Events Screening Inventory Parent Report (TESI). The CTQ is a self-report inventory assessing perceived childhood physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. Bernstein and Fink (1998) established scores for none, mild, moderate, and severe for each type of abuse. The data from the CTQ were used to classify participants into 2 categories for each type of abuse (physical, sexual, and emotional): (1) Low abuse included those with CTQ scale scores in the “none to mild” range, and (2) High abuse included those with CTQ scores in the “moderate to severe” range. The PSS is a psychometrically valid 17-item self-report scale assessing PTSD symptomatology over the two weeks prior to rating (Falsetti SA, 1993 ). The PSS provides a continuous measure of PTSD symptom severity and has been validated with the Clinician Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS; (Foa, Riggs, Dancu, & Rothbaum, 1993 ; Foa & Tolin, 2000 (link)). The BDI consists of a 21-item questionnaire (Beck, Ward, Mendelsohn, Mock, & Erbaugh, 1961 (link)). This instrument provides a well-validated, commonly used, continuous score of depressive symptoms. The TESI is a 24-item parent-report version of a structured clinical interview that inquires about the child’s lifetime experience trauma exposure (Ribbe, 1996 ).
The Structured Clinical Interview for DSM IV (First, Spitzer, Williams, & Gibbon, 1995 ) was administered to all mothers. In addition to the diagnostic interview, all participants completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), the PTSD Symptom Scale (PSS), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and the Traumatic Events Screening Inventory Parent Report (TESI). The CTQ is a self-report inventory assessing perceived childhood physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. Bernstein and Fink (1998) established scores for none, mild, moderate, and severe for each type of abuse. The data from the CTQ were used to classify participants into 2 categories for each type of abuse (physical, sexual, and emotional): (1) Low abuse included those with CTQ scale scores in the “none to mild” range, and (2) High abuse included those with CTQ scores in the “moderate to severe” range. The PSS is a psychometrically valid 17-item self-report scale assessing PTSD symptomatology over the two weeks prior to rating (Falsetti SA, 1993 ). The PSS provides a continuous measure of PTSD symptom severity and has been validated with the Clinician Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS; (Foa, Riggs, Dancu, & Rothbaum, 1993 ; Foa & Tolin, 2000 (link)). The BDI consists of a 21-item questionnaire (Beck, Ward, Mendelsohn, Mock, & Erbaugh, 1961 (link)). This instrument provides a well-validated, commonly used, continuous score of depressive symptoms. The TESI is a 24-item parent-report version of a structured clinical interview that inquires about the child’s lifetime experience trauma exposure (Ribbe, 1996 ).
