Preventing the detrimental effect of posttraumatic stress in young children: The role of theory of mind in the aftermath of a natural disaster

Abstract

We conducted a field study to test whether parents' negative reactions to a natural disaster affected children's reactions, together with the factors buffering this negative influence. Specifically, we examined whether parents' posttraumatic stress symptoms following an earthquake were associated with children's posttraumatic symptoms and their use of negative coping strategies. Theory of mind (ToM) was tested as the factor allowing children to reduce the detrimental effects of posttraumatic stress symptoms on negative coping. Hypotheses were tested in a sample of elementary school children and their parents in the aftermath of the earthquakes that struck Northern Italy in 2012. Results revealed that mothers' (but not fathers') posttraumatic stress symptoms were positively associated with children's posttraumatic stress symptoms, which acted as mediator on the use of negative coping strategies by children, but only among children with low ToM abilities. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of findings.

Keywords:

• Theory of mind
• Coping strategies
• Earthquake
• Children
• Posttraumatic stress disorder
• Natural disasters

We would like to thank Paola Caprari, Mirella Notardonato, Margherita Righi, Paola Spagnol and the other teachers for their help in the organization of the study. We are also grateful to the Institutes Frank, Giotto, Pertini (Carpi), Frank (Novi di Modena) and Battisti (Rovereto sulla Secchia) for allowing us to collect data. Finally, we wish to thank the students enrolled in educational academic courses at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia who helped with data collection and coding.

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ Regression analyses were replicated controlling for the effects of school of belonging by using the cluster option in PROCESS (Hayes, 2012). Results were virtually identical.

² We conducted additional analyses showing that school grade and gender did not moderate any of the hypothesized paths (Figure 1).