Medscape (8/9, Cassels) reports that a study published in the August issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry has suggested that certain risk factors may identify adolescents “at greatest risk of developing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following potentially traumatic experiences (PTE).” The study, which “included data on 6,483 adolescent-parent pairs aged 13 to 17 years,” found that “the strongest vulnerability factors for PTSD included female sex, events involving interpersonal violence, and pre-existing anxiety and mood disorders before exposure to the worst traumatic stressor.”
