title: Trauma, mental health, and intergenerational associations in Kosovar Families 11 years after the war.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  While there is a considerable amount of literature addressing consequences of trauma in veterans and holocaust survivors, war and postwar civilian populations, particularly children, are still understudied. Evidence regarding intergenerational effects of trauma in families is inconsistent.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To shed light on intergenerational aspects of trauma-related mental health problems among families 11 years after the Kosovo war.
  
  
  METHODS
  In a cross-sectional study, a paired sample of 51 randomly selected triplets (school-aged child, mother, father, N=153) of Kosovar families was investigated with regard to trauma exposure, posttraumatic stress (UCLA Posttraumatic Diagnostic Scale), anxiety (Spence Children's Anxiety Scale, Hopkins Symptom Checklist-25), and depressive symptoms (Depressionsinventar für Kinder und Jugendliche [DIKJ; depression inventory for children and adolescents], Hopkins Symptom Checklist-25).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Considerable trauma exposure and high prevalence rates of clinically relevant posttraumatic stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms were found in both parents and children. While strong correlations were found between children's depressive symptoms and paternal posttraumatic stress, anxiety and depressive symptoms, maternal symptoms did not correlate with their children's. In multiple regression analyses, only posttraumatic stress symptoms of fathers were significantly related with children's depressive symptoms.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Eleven years after the Kosovo war, the presence of posttraumatic stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms in civilian adults and their children is still substantial. As symptoms of parents and children are associated, mental health problems of close ones should be actively screened and accounted for in comprehensive treatment plans, using a systemic approach. Future research should include longitudinal studies conducting multivariate analyses with larger sample sizes in order to investigate indicators, causal and resilience factors.
authors: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Hospital Zürich, Switzerland.
authors: Matthis
authors: M
authors: Schick
authors: Naser
authors: N
authors: Morina
authors: Richard
authors: R
authors: Klaghofer
authors: Ulrich
authors: U
authors: Schnyder
authors: Julia
authors: J
authors: Müller
keywords: Kosovo; PTSD; children; intergenerational; parents; trauma; war
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