Impact of childhood exposure to a natural disaster on adult mental health: 20-year longitudinal follow-up study

Abstract

BackgroundStudies examining the impact of childhood disaster exposure on the development of adult psychopathology report increased rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other psychopathology.AimsTo examine the rates of PTSD and other lifetime DSM–IV disorders in adults exposed to an Australian bushfire disaster as children in 1983 using a matched control sample recruited at the time of the original study.MethodA total of 1011 adults recruited from an original sample of 1531 were assessed 20 years following the fires using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI–2.1).ResultsResults showed only a small direct impact of the fires on adult psychiatric morbidity. A higher proportion of bushfire survivors met criteria for ‘any DSM–IV disorder’ and ‘any anxiety’.ConclusionsFindings suggest that the long-term impact of a prominent trauma in childhood should be assessed in the context of other lifetime trauma in order to provide a more accurate account of PTSD prevalence rates.