Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in children and adolescents occurs when a child is exposed to one or more events that are unexpected, uncontrollable, life-threatening, and likely to cause serious harm or injury to himself/herself or someone significantly important to the child. In response, th...e child experiences fear, hopelessness, or horror and responds with a characteristic set of physiological and psychological reactions, which perpetuates the overwhelming and confusing feelings. Symptoms are characterized into three groups: persistent, intrusive re-experiencing of traumatic recollections; avoidance of reminders/numbing; and increased arousal.
more
Policy Brief | Number 5 (April 2011)
A GUIDE FOR HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS.
This material was reprinted, with permission, from the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s publication entitled Assessing
patients for sexual violence: A guide for health care providers. This guide is available by visiting www.nsvrc.org