Type of traumatic experience and depression in adolescents

Objective: Adolescents are especially vulnerable to the effects of trauma, and trauma can have a significant impact on their development. Typical reactions to traumatic experiences include fear and anxiety, sleep disturbances, physical complaints (such as headaches or stomach pain), antisocial behavior, depression and sadness, and fear of separation from loved ones. The way an adolescent adapts to stressors has a lot to do with how well his or her family is functioning. Aim of this study was to show relations between presence of depression and psychosocial stress factors in adolescent anamnesis.

Method: In research 536 adolescents took part, in age between 15 and 18. By using BDI and RADS we found that 12-18% of adolescents confirm clinical level of depression symptoms. On LSCL-R questionary 415 adolescents (77,4%) had stress life events, most of them had death of close person, catastrophe, or had been witness of catastrophe or severe accident, small number of them had severe accident, or were witness of violence in family, experienced divorce of parents, emotional torture, physical and sexual torture, severe financial difficulties etc.

Results: There strong connection between type of trauma and depression. The deepest at adolescents was caused by physical and sexual tortures, death and illness of family member, violence, conşicts and heavy disagreement in family. It is important to seek and discover adolescents who are under the inşuence of various stress factors, because it decreases risk of developing depression disorders. Support and help of family members defend adolescent of depressive answers on various stress factors. It has been found that when adolescents lack parental support, they are more likely to have behavioral problems and emotional distress.

Conclusion: There are strong connection between type of trauma and depression in adolescents.