Research reportRange and specificity of war-related trauma to posttraumatic stress; depression and general health perception: Displaced former World War II children in late life
Section snippets
Participants' recruitment
This study is part of the Longitudinal Urban Cohort Aging Study (LUCAS) in Hamburg, Germany (von Renteln-Kruse, 2008). The sample was initially drawn from representative patient lists of general practitioners registered in the entire metropolitan area of Hamburg (for procedure see Stuck et al., 2007). In the current psychosocial study a subsample, with all former displaced person (n = 414) and a comparison group of non-displaced persons (n = 414) matched by gender and age were eligible to
Results
Besides gender as an associated variable with PTSD (F = 4.539, p = .0001) and Depression Syndrome (F = 6.69, p = .010) no other socio-demographic variable has been found for being associated with symptomatology. Noteworthy is the lack of correlation between age at time of event exposure and PTSD (r = .053, p = .303) and Depression Syndrome (r = .001, p = .989) as well as between time passed since the experience of the most severe event and PTSD (r = −.037, p = .465) and Depression Syndrome (r.=014, p = .785.).
Limitations
A number of limitations need to be noted. Since the study groups are drawn from a reassessment of the LUCAS-Sample (von Renteln-Kruse, 2008), the representativeness of the original LUCAS community sample of elderly people living in the greater Hamburg area, could not be maintained. The resulting non-random sampling procedures may have introduced selection biases and impaired the generalizability of the results. The measure of cumulative trauma was unable to take into account qualitative
Discussion
Findings of this study suggest that even more than 60 years later, WW II related trauma exposure poses a risk on mental health functioning. Moreover, in addition to a given dose response effect of cumulative trauma exposure, mental health outcomes are likely to be triggered by unique trauma types.
The study demonstrated a large effect size of Cohen's d = .83 with displaced former WW II children having experienced more war-related trauma events during their WW II childhood. Besides the effect large
Conclusion
The study stresses the relevance of heterogeneity in trauma exposure in war-affected populations in the long-term. In former WW II children emerged essential diversity in levels and types of trauma experienced. In accordance with DSM-IV, Human Right Violations revealed as predictor of posttraumatic stress status, whereas Deprivation & Threat to Life is demonstrated to be predictive for depression status in late life. These findings contribute to different etiological models for PTSD and
Role of funding source
Funding for the current study was provided by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (FMER, Grant 01ET0710) as part of the interdisciplinary LUCAS consortium (coordinator in chief: Prof. Wolfgang von Renteln-Kruse). The FMER had no further role in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the paper for publication.
Conflict of interest
None of the authors has a conflict of interest to be declared.
Acknowledgements
We appreciate and would like to thank to the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research that funded the interdisciplinary LUCAS consortium. We would like to thank the research office of the Albertinen-Haus Centre of Geriatrics and Gerontology, namely Susann Laub for the distribution of the postal survey and the maintenance of the participants as well as Stefan Golgert for the statistical sampling and matching. We are grateful to all members of the LUCAS consortium, and the Hamburg
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