Risk and protective factors mediating psychological symptoms and ideological commitment of adolescents facing continuous terrorism.

This study evaluated symptoms, risk, and protective factors of adolescents from six Israeli schools exposed to continuous terrorism. All children in the grades selected at each school (7, 9, and 11) were administered anonymous assessment materials measuring posttraumatic, grief, and dissociative symptoms, as well as traumatic exposure, personal resilience, and family factors. A high number of risk factors increased the likelihood of negative symptoms. Perceived personal resilience served as a protective factor against symptom development, perhaps enforced by ideology. Girls living on the West Bank had less severe posttrauma and were more willing to make personal sacrifices for their country. Proactive interventions aimed at enhancing a child's personal resilience and ability to cope with continuous stress may help protect against later symptomatology following traumatic events. Facing terrorism, political ideology may serve a double edge sword: protecting against symptom development as well as contributing to the toxic cycle of violence.

Teacher-mediated intervention after disaster: a controlled three-year follow-up of children's functioning.

BACKGROUND: Child survivors of a catastrophic earthquake in Turkey were evaluated three and a half years after the event, and three years after a sub-group participated in a teacher-mediated intervention developed by the authors. The goal of this follow-up study was to determine the long-term effectiveness of the original intervention. METHODS: Subjects who participated in the intervention were compared with a control group of children similar in terms of demographics, risk and exposure. All children were evaluated in terms of posttraumatic, grief and dissociative symptomatology, as well as adaptive functioning (academic performance, social behavior and general conduct). RESULTS: The severity of post-traumatic, grief and dissociative symptoms of the two groups was comparable. Teachers blind to group assignment rated participating children significantly higher than the control group in terms of adaptive functioning. CONCLUSIONS: Early post-disaster intervention addressing children and their educational milieu provides children with significant symptomatic reduction, allowing the mobilization of adaptive coping, thereby enhancing their overall functioning as observed in school.