Longitudinal association between infant disorganized attachment and childhood posttraumatic stress symptoms.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether children with a history of disorganized attachment in infancy were more likely than children without a history of disorganized attachment to exhibit symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at school age following trauma exposure. The sample consisted of 78 8.5-year-old children from a larger, ongoing prospective study evaluating the effects of intrauterine cocaine exposure (IUCE) on children's growth and development from birth to adolescence. At the 12-month visit, children's attachment status was scored from videotapes of infant-caregiver dyads in Ainsworth's strange situation. At the 8.5-year visit, children were administered the Violence Exposure Scale-Revised, a child-report trauma exposure inventory, and the Diagnostic Interview for Children and Adolescents by an experienced clinical psychologist masked to children's attachment status and IUCE status. Sixteen of the 78 children (21%) were classified as insecure-disorganized/insecure-other at 12 months. Poisson regressions covarying IUCE, gender, and continuity of maternal care indicated that disorganized attachment status at 12 months, compared with nondisorganized attachment status, significantly predicted both higher avoidance cluster PTSD symptoms and higher reexperiencing cluster PTSD symptoms. These findings suggest that the quality of early dyadic relationships may be linked to differences in children's later development of posttraumatic stress symptoms following a traumatic event.
MacDonald
Helen Z
HZ
Behavioral Sciences Division, National [corrected] Center for PTSD, VA Boston Healthcare System, 150 South Huntington Avenue, 116B-4, Boston, MA 02130, USA.
Beeghly
Marjorie
M
Grant-Knight
Wanda
W
Augustyn
Marilyn
M
Woods
Ryan W
RW
Cabral
Howard
H
Rose-Jacobs
Ruth
R
Saxe
Glenn N
GN
Frank
Deborah A
DA
D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D001143:Arousal; D001900:Boston; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003042:Cocaine / Q000633:toxicity; D015897:Comorbidity; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008016:Life Change Events; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D010552:Personality Assessment; D010553:Personality Development; D011247:Pregnancy; D011297:Prenatal Exposure Delayed Effects / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011610:Psychosocial Deprivation; D019962:Reactive Attachment Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D012307:Risk Factors; D012931:Social Environment; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology
D003042:Cocaine