Parental PTSD, adverse parenting and child attachment in a refugee sample

ABSTRACT

In contrast with traumatic experiences, there is a dearth of studies on the link between trauma symptoms, disconnected (frightened, threatening and dissociative) parenting behavior, extremely insensitive parenting behavior and child attachment. This study extends previous work on the impact of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on families by studying the unique contribution of disconnected and extremely insensitive parenting behavior on child attachment in a highly traumatized sample of 68 asylum seekers and refugees and their children (18–42 months). The results show that parental symptoms of PTSD are directly related to children’s insecure attachment and disorganized attachment. The greatest proportion of the risk could be attributed to factors related to the dyad and not the family. A mediation effect of adverse parenting behavior was not confirmed. On the one hand the results indicate the need for an effective treatment of PTSD symptomatology while on the other hand the results indicate the need for clinical attention to insecure attachment relationships.

KEYWORDS:

• PTSD
• refugee
• parent
• attachment
• adverse caregiving

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all asylum seekers and refugees who were willing to trust our staff and participate in this research. We are especially grateful to M. J. Van IJzendoorn and M. H. Bakermans-Kranenburg for their valuable contribution to the design of the study and the selection of measurements and to A.G.J. van de Schoot for his valuable contribution to the statistical analyses.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. www.centrum45.nl

Additional information

Funding

E. van Ee was supported by ZonMW [grant number 100002037] from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). D. Out was supported by a Rubicon award (446-10-026) from NWO.