Does gender matter? A comparative study of post-traumatic stress disorder among children and teenager

Abstract

Introduction

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomatology seems to depend of many variables like age, exposition to trauma, environment…

Objectives

Compare, basing on gender, socio-demographic and symptomatology of patients with PTSD.

Methods

A retrospective and comparative study was conducted at the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Department of Mongi Slim Hospital (Tunisia) from January 2013 until July 2016. We included all cases of patients followed for PTSD (DSM-5). They were divide into 2 groups according to the gender. Data was collected from patients’ records.

Results

Our study featured 30 patients: 16 boys and 14 girls. The average age was similar for both teams (boys: 8.43 years; girls: 8.53 years). Boys had twice more personal history of somatic, psychiatric illness (70%), and low socioeconomic status (62.5%). The beginning of the facts were significantly later for the female group (P < 0.001). Females were more likely to be a witness, while males tented to be directly exposed to the trauma. Physical abuse was the major aggression for both groups.

Female gender was associated to parental trauma exposure (P = 0.023) and to an ongoing event (P = 0.004). Meanwhile, male gender was associated to a maternal history of psychiatric illness (P = 0.012), a single traumatic event (P = 0.010), and to a school located aggression (0.04). Girls have developed more hypervigilance, guilt symptoms and aggressive behaviors. Low self-worth, regression, specific phobia and suicidal ideations occurred more frequently among boys.

Conclusions

Health professionals must be aware of the youth PTSD warning signs in order to have the earlier right intervention.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.