| Abstract [eng] |
Zalieckaitė, E. (2021). Relationship Between Traumatic Experiences and Complex Posttraumatic Stress in Adolescence. Master’s thesis. Vilnius: Vilnius University, p. 57. Exposure to traumatic events can be a risk factor for a person's daily functioning of varying severity and also it can be a risk for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD). Studies show that particularly adolescents are in extremely high risk of encountering a traumatic event. However, there is little research on adolescent traumatic experiences and their post-traumatic reactions. Given the lack of such studies in the Lithuanian adolescent population, this study examined 200 adolescents (140 girls and 60 boys) aged 12–15 years (M = 13.68; SD = 0.70). The Trauma Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents (CATS) was used to identify traumatic events across the study, and the ICD-11 Trauma Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents (ITQ-CA) was used to assess risk groups for PTSD and CPTSD. Study participants were found to have experienced an average of 2.27 (SD = 1.53) traumatic events during their lifetime. Adolescents often faced traumatic experiences in the course of their lives, such as a serious accident, experiencing physical violence outside the family, seeing physical violence outside the family, and unpleasant or intimidating medical procedures. It was found that PTSD risk group consisted of 10 (5.0%) of study participants and CPTSD risk group consisted of 19 (9.5%) of study participants. PTSD was predicted by the number of stressful events and the number of traumatic events experienced by the adolescent. CPTSD was predicted by female gender, age, the number of experienced stressful events, and the number of experienced traumatic events. |
