TY - JOUR T1 - Post-traumatic stress disorder JF - Archives of Disease in Childhood JO - Arch Dis Child SP - 107 LP - 109 DO - 10.1136/adc.80.2.107 VL - 80 IS - 2 AU - WILLIAM YULE Y1 - 1999/02/01 UR - http://adc.bmj.com/content/80/2/107.abstract N2 - A 1996 report from the Child Accident Prevention Trust1 reminds us that “Every year in the UK about 700 children die, 120 000 are admitted to hospital, and over 200 000 attend accident & emergency departments as a result of accidents.” (The most common accidents were falls, followed by road traffic accidents.) Overall, 9% of the children attending three A&E departments scored so highly on a screening scale for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that a diagnosis of PTSD was extremely likely. Half the children involved in road traffic accidents were judged likely to have PTSD. Other, larger studies of child survivors of road traffic accidents2 3 found that 33% met criteria for a diagnosis of PTSD, with even more showing subthreshold clusters of distressing symptoms. After six months, one in six still presented with the full blown syndrome.Until 15 years ago, it was widely accepted that most children responded to frightening events with transient distress and that not all children who experienced a potentially traumatic event reacted with disabling stress reactions.4 One reason for underestimating the effects of traumatic events on children was that the evidence was incomplete. Put simply, the bulk of the existing evidence came from data provided by parents and teachers. Few investigators had done what is now so obvious—they had not asked the children themselves!PTSD was first officially recognised as a syndrome by the American Psychiatric Association in 1980. It was classified as an anxiety disorder and three main groups of symptoms were seen as characteristic: distressing and recurring recollections of the traumatic event; avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma; and a range of signs of increased physiological arousal.5 Today, PTSD has become so widely discussed that trauma counsellors and specialists are expected to arrive in droves whenever major, and often … ER -