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Despite international bans, more than 250,000 children fight as soldiers in 86 countries across the globe, almost half of them in Africa. Two new studies explored how these children adjust after they return to their homes. Key to successful adaptation, the studies found, was the characteristics of the communities to which the children returned.
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Living in a neighborhood where a violent death occurs may harm a child’s ability to think in the days immediately afterward, even if they weren’t a witness, a study from Chicago suggests. Patrick Sharkey of New York University plotted where more than 6,000 homicides occurred in Chicago between 1994 and 2002. He then tracked how well African-American and Hispanic children from 5 to 17 years old did on standardized reading and vocabulary tests given around the time of a homicide, comparing them to similar children in the same neighborhood who took the tests months before or after homicides.
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Rebuilding schools after Hurricane Katrina and providing supportive environments and relationships have helped many children reduce their levels of overall trauma from the hurricane that devastated the Gulf Coast in August 2005, according to a new study. A second study found that girls had distinct stress reactions from boys in the aftermath of the storm. The studies appear in a special section on children and disaster in the July/August 2010 issue of the journal Child Development.
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Two new longitudinal studies show that age played an important role in the effects of the September 11, 2001 (9/11) terrorist attacks on New York City. Both studies appear in a special section on children and disaster in the July/August 2010 issue of the journal Child Development. In the first study, researchers found higher rates of clinically significant behavior problems among preschool children directly exposed to 9/11 in Lower Manhattan according to whether their mothers had post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. In the second study, New York City adolescents and their mothers had generally elevated rates of PTSD and depression one year after 9/11. Direct exposure to the events of 9/11 played a small but significant role in explaining the severity of mental health symptoms.
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Children who live with their parents after local child protective services agency enters their lives have worrying levels of a stress hormone compared to those who end up in foster care. Researchers at the University of Delaware at Newark studied 339 children aged 3 months to 31 months, 155 of whom lived with their birth parents and 184 who landed in foster care, all after child protective services became involved with the families.
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Cette revue de la littérature examine les différentes réponses aux traumatismes subis par les peuples autochtones en raison des politiques gouvernementales orientées vers l’assimilation. Les réponses en termes de traumatismes et de résilience sont démontrées à un niveau individuel, familial et communautaire. Une grande partie de la recherche effectuée aux États-Unis afin de développer des théories sur les traumatismes historiques et fondée sur le stress post-traumatique relatif aux races peut également être appliquée aux Premières nations du Canada en raison d’une histoire d’oppression similaire. Une connexion à la culture et à la spiritualité ont donné de meilleurs résultats pour les peuples autochtones.
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The purpose of this review was to examine the conceptualization and measurement of coping in adolescent research. A review of the literature published and abstracted in four scientific databases was undertaken between July 2008 and June 2009 with the following key words: adolescent(s), cope/coping, stress(ors), and adaptation/psychological.
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In this paper, the authors create indices of resilience to identify adolescents at risk of smoking, drinking alcohol, and using illegal drugs. Using data from the U.S. National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, three manifestations of resilience were identified: overall-resilience, self/family-resilience, and self-resilience. The analysis reveals that the overall-resilient were less likely to engage in risky behaviors. The self/family resilient were more likely to engage in risky behaviors, but consumed less. The self-resilient had reduced risk for smoking and drinking alcohol but elevated risk for using illegal drugs and being in an addictive stage of smoking and drinking, if participating.
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This review synthesizes evidence from disparate sources describing the vulnerabilities and resilience of the children of female sex workers and drug users, and documents some models of care that have been put in place to assist them.
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Physicians experience workplace stress and draw on different coping strategies. The primary goal of this paper is to use interview data to explore physicians’ self reported coping strategies. In addition, questionnaire data is utilized to explore the degree to which the coping strategies are used and are associated with feelings of emotional exhaustion, a key symptom of burnout.
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Although some previous studies have suggested that posttraumatic growth (PTG) is comprised of several factors with different properties, few have examined the association between PTG and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as well as between PTG and resilience focusing on each factor of PTG. This study aimed to examine the hypothesis that some factors of PTG, such as personal strength, relate to resilience, whereas other factors, such as appreciation of life, relate to PTSD symptoms among Japanese motor vehicle accident (MVA) survivors.
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The aim of this study is to examine the determinants and correlates of coping styles in the chronic phase following acquired brain injury. The authors observed that cognitive functions do not influence coping style. Passive emotion-focused coping styles in the chronic phase after injury are maladaptive. These findings emphasize the importance of training of adaptive coping styles as rehabilitation targets in the chronic phase, especially for persons with lower educational attainment.
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The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of child sexual abuse (CSA) on the use of coping strategies and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) scores in young adults, as well as the role of avoidance and approach coping strategies in those PTSD scores in CSA victims. The role of coping strategies was studied by considering their possible interactive effect with the continuity of abuse and the relationship with the perpetrator; the effect of coping strategies on PTSD was also compared between CSA victim and non-CSA victim participants.
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The aim of this study was to identify factors associated with resilience of school age children with cancer. The authors observed that school age children with cancer who reported higher family function and positive relationships with friends showed higher resiliency than their counterparts. Thus, it is important to help the families of children with cancer to enhance family function and help children to adjust to school re-entry by maintaining ties with school friends and teachers during treatment.
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Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies have demonstrated an association between various functions of reminiscence and well-being in later adulthood. This study investigates to what extent the links between reminiscence (self-positive and self-negative functions) and psychological well-being (depressive symptoms, anxiety level and life satisfaction) are mediated by assimilative and accommodative coping.
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Recent years have seen growing interest into concepts of resilience, but minimal research has explored resilience to suicide and none has investigated resilience to suicide amongst clinical groups. The current study aimed to examine whether a proposed resilience factor, positive self-appraisals of the ability to cope with emotions, difficult situations and the ability to gain social support, could buffer against the negative impact of hopelessness amongst individuals with psychosis-spectrum disorders when measured cross-sectionally.