Posttrauma psychosocial effects in children: A systematic review of measurement scales

Abstract

Problem: Worldwide, the psychopathological effects of catastrophes such as earthquake, hurricane and war are causing traumas in an enormous number of children. Identification and assessment of the impact on children of catastrophic events is essential to their healing and continued well-being.

Methods: To identify the relevant tools Google Scholar, SID, PsycInfo, Medlib, MedLine, and PubMed databases were searched using the relevant Mesh terms and their equivalents including ("anxiety" or "fear" or "depression" or "psychosocial distress" or "prolonged grief" or "trauma general effect") AND ("tool and measures") OR ("cognition" and "parents") AND "scale and measures") from inception to March 2019.

Findings: Sixty-four measures were identified to be applied for measuring traumas' psychosocial effects on children. Anxiety and depression, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), sexual abuse, trauma general effect and stress were among the important emanated tools to the assessment of posttrauma psychosocial predicaments in children.

Conclusion: Few measures are identified to measure post trauma fear, prolonged grief and psychosocial distress in young children. However; a suitable scale for assessment of parents' cognition about general effects of traumas and parents' cognition about effects of trauma on children is less emphasized in current literature.

Keywords: children; measures; parents’ cognition; trauma effects.