Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

Kickin_chickn t1_ixyn9t9 wrote

Reply to comment by AllanfromWales1 in Childhood traumas strongly impact both mental and physical health, new study shows. For every reported type of abuse experienced in childhood, a participant's risk for PTSD increased 47%. Each cumulative trauma also increased one's risk for making a suicide attempt by 33%. by Wagamaga

I believe this was on a self reported basis. Participants were asked if any of the ACE applied to them and if they felt that they suffered from any of the conditions. No diagnosis needed.

23

AllanfromWales1 t1_ixynnqi wrote

I think what I'm saying is that the personality of the participant will at least in part determine whether they interpret a particular incident as adverse, and will also be a factor in whether they suffer from PTSD as a result. So it's not entirely the actual incident which is the issue, but also the response to the incident.

9

Kickin_chickn t1_ixyo9o5 wrote

http://americanspcc.org/take-the-aces-quiz/

This is a link to the type of questions used, it might help answer you question a little bit more

12

AllanfromWales1 t1_ixyq68y wrote

There are certainly questions here for which the answer is subjective rather than objective and will be influenced by the personality of the participant.

0

OrcRampant t1_ixytchc wrote

Personality has nothing to do with it. An adverse event is one which causes abnormally long periods of cortisol in the developing brain. There are studies and scientific evidence of how a persons brain develops differently.

28

AllanfromWales1 t1_ixyua8p wrote

So when asked a question from the ACE test such as:
> Did you often or very often feel that … a) No one in your family loved you or thought you were important or special?

.. the response will be objective and not affected by the personality of the person answering?

4

OrcRampant t1_ixyv2ln wrote

I believed my parents loved me, even though my dad knocked me through the banisters. I thought I was important to them even though they never made me feel that way. The affects still exist.

For years I had difficulty in relationships because of how I was raised. Thinking I was raised normally didn’t save me from the side effects. Regardless of my answer, cortisol poisoning was still happening.

Scientific studies aren’t just a quiz and that’s it. The World Health Organization followed thousands of candidates over the course of 20 years before they published their study about ACEs.

36

AllanfromWales1 t1_ixyw72x wrote

OP's study, though, is based on answers to the ACE test, not on assessing participants' cortisol levels.

3

OrcRampant t1_ixyx14e wrote

My point is, whatever a person’s personality is does not determine the health affects of the adverse events. What you are referring to is under reporting, or normalizing trauma. That’s why these questions are asked in several ways and with different wording. The results aren’t unreliable.

13

AllanfromWales1 t1_ixyy7ct wrote

> That’s why these questions are asked in several ways and with different wording.

Not in the test I was looking at. They looked for different effects, but didn't repeat questions with different formulations to try to pick up issues which might have been passed over.

Yes, my concern is that normalised trauma may introduce a bias in the results. In particular, that the sort of people/families that may normalise trauma may well be the sort of people/families who would not identify PTSD and hence it would not be detected. This would appear in the records as people without detected trauma having a lower incidence rate of detected PTSD, as such introducing a bias in the results.

6

OrcRampant t1_ixyzrbu wrote

“Many previous studies observed that traumatic childhood events are linked to long-term adult diseases using the standard Adverse Childhood Experience Questionnaire.”

“…volunteer-based population health study in which each adult participant is invited to take a retrospective questionnaire that includes the Adverse Childhood Experience Questionnaire…”

“Using participant’s cross-referenced electronic health records, a phenome-wide association analysis of 1,703 phenotypes and the incidence of ACEs examined links between traumatic events in childhood and adult disease.”

So, this is science. They have to be thorough. Also consider that the hypothetical person who has normalized trauma would not be volunteering to be in a study like this. All in all, I just think that means that there are likely more abuse victims out there than we know, but that really doesn’t affect a study like this.

9

[deleted] t1_iy0d5bp wrote

[removed]

1

Francie_Nolan1964 t1_iy0vf7v wrote

There's a lot of childhood trauma that's not included on ACEs such as death of a parent, being in foster care, terminal illness, significant car accident, etc. The authors only included the MOST common adverse childhood experiences.

5

BananaJammies t1_iy0dje0 wrote

Seems like that could fall under both “emotional neglect” and “mental illness in the household”, no?

1

jenkinsleroi t1_ixz1tzy wrote

Trauma affects personality development, so I'm not sure your question makes sense.

Besides which, if they've already correlated the scoring on the questions with people diagnosed with trauma, then I'm unsure what other validation you're looking for.

3

AllanfromWales1 t1_ixz4qpc wrote

I don't have a problem with the idea that trauma and PTSD are connected - that's a truism. I just feel that to quote numbers in the way this article does is slightly questionable.

Obviously trauma affects personality development, but I think it's folly to suggest that pre-existing personality doesn't influence the extent to which a given event will traumatise a person.

−7

jenkinsleroi t1_iy1lqok wrote

You keep saying personality, but it's unclear what you mean by that and it's making your question non-sensible.

For the sake of argument, let's assume that you mean temperament or sensitivity. It still doesn't matter, because what's relevant is whether or not an individual experienced an event as traumatic.

8

halfjapmarine t1_iy1jdfg wrote

What are you getting at? Some people are weak minded so PTSD affects them more?

3

sudo999 t1_iy1i22a wrote

self-report doesn't necessarily mean they were asked if they "felt" they had particular conditions; the wording of the question matters heavily (e.g. it could have said "have you ever been diagnosed," "have you ever suspected," "has any friend or family member ever told you," etc which would all have dramatically different effects)

edit: exact wording for the study was "Have you ever been diagnosed with, or treated for, any of the conditions" with a set of nine conditions participants could select. I suppose people could lie or misremember, but it's not particularly subjective.

2