Abstract
Objectives
This study examined trajectories of posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms in impoverished mothers impacted by Hurricane Katrina, as well as how predictive the maternal trajectories were for youth posttraumatic stress symptoms 2 years post-Katrina.
Methods
360 mother participants displaced by Hurricane Katrina completed self-report measures across four time points related to Hurricane exposure, trauma history, and posttraumatic stress symptoms. Additionally, the youth offspring completed a self-report measure of posttraumatic stress symptoms.
Results
Latent Class Growth Analysis demonstrated three primary trajectories emerged among females impacted by Katrina, namely, (1) chronic (4 %), (2) recovering (30 %), and (3) resilient (66 %), respectively. These trajectories were significantly impacted by prior trauma history, but not hurricane exposure. Additionally, data indicated that children whose parents fell into the chronic PTS trajectory also reported high levels of PTS symptoms.
Conclusions
This study identified three main trajectories typical of female PTS symptoms following disaster and was the first known study to document associations between PTS outcomes among adults and their offspring impacted by a large natural disaster. Future research is warranted and should explore additional risk and protective factors that impact both the parental and child outcomes.
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Acknowledgments
This material is based upon work supported by the US Department of Homeland Security under Award Number: 2008-ST-061-ND 0001 and a research grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (RMH-078148A).
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The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the US Department of Homeland Security.
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Self-Brown, S., Lai, B.S., Harbin, S. et al. Maternal posttraumatic stress disorder symptom trajectories following Hurricane Katrina: An initial examination of the impact of maternal trajectories on the well-being of disaster-exposed youth. Int J Public Health 59, 957–965 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-014-0596-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-014-0596-0