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Parent Child Agreement On Reports Of Child Exposure On The 9 / 11 World Trade Center Attack Essay

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Parent-child agreement on reports of child exposure to the 9/11 World Trade Center attack Mass traumatic events including natural and manmade disasters affect a significant proportion of the world population each year (The International Disaster Database http://www.emdat.be/, Global Terrorism Database https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/, Shulz 2014 Mass Shootings ). In the United States an estimated 14% of children and adolescents have experienced one or more natural or human caused disaster (Beckler-Blease 2013;McLaughlin 2013). Though especially vulnerable to the impact of these events, historically the needs of children have not been systematically addressed. Given psychiatric sequelae of trauma exhibit a dose response relationship with event severity, ascertaining the level of exposure for intervention or research purposes is crucial. When the victims are children, this can be particularly difficult. Establishing a child’s exposure history often involves the use of multiple informants. Rates of parent-child agreement gauge the challenge facing post-trauma mental health service providers and researchers. Without an objective measure at the time of traumatic exposures, parental report is often taken to supersede or supplement children’s own accounts1. In many situations, however, parents are uninformed regarding their child’s experiences, and children themselves may be the best informants. Trauma research suggests that particular factors are associated with

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