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The nature of posttraumatic nightmares and school functioning in war-affected youth

Children and adolescents who have experienced traumatic events demonstrate a variety of posttraumatic symptoms, including recurrent nightmares, as well as adverse reactions in the school setting. The current study examined nightmare symptoms, posttraumatic stress, sleep disturbance, and self- and te...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Harb, Gerlinde C., Schultz, Jon-Håkon
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7688112/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33237929
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242414
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author Harb, Gerlinde C.
Schultz, Jon-Håkon
author_facet Harb, Gerlinde C.
Schultz, Jon-Håkon
author_sort Harb, Gerlinde C.
collection PubMed
description Children and adolescents who have experienced traumatic events demonstrate a variety of posttraumatic symptoms, including recurrent nightmares, as well as adverse reactions in the school setting. The current study examined nightmare symptoms, posttraumatic stress, sleep disturbance, and self- and teacher-reported school functioning of 64 youths in the Gaza Strip, ages 12 to 16, who have lived through three wars and experience ongoing conflict and political insecurity. Students were treatment-seeking for sleep-problems and reported, on average, five nightmares per week for an average of three years, with concomitant disrupted sleep, fear of going to sleep, and not feeling rested in the morning. Both teachers and students reported that participants exhibited impaired academic functioning and daytime sleepiness. The content of the students’ nightmares demonstrated frightening themes of being under attack and loss of self-efficacy/control; threat levels were high, and almost 60% included the threat of death. Approximately half of the nightmares included surreal elements in addition to more realistic scenes of violence. Participants in the study demonstrated substantial posttraumatic sleep problems with intensely distressing, frequent and chronic nightmares, andnightmare symptoms were associated with impairment in school functioning. Given the disruptive and distressing nature of these students’ nightmare disturbance, we suggest that increasing self-efficacy in relation to the experience of recurrent nightmares may be a good point of intervention with these recurrently traumatized youth. Thus, increasing the understanding of students’ nightmare symptoms may lead to ameliorating the suffering of youths in war zones and may have positive effects on their school functioning.
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spelling pubmed-76881122020-12-05 The nature of posttraumatic nightmares and school functioning in war-affected youth Harb, Gerlinde C. Schultz, Jon-Håkon PLoS One Research Article Children and adolescents who have experienced traumatic events demonstrate a variety of posttraumatic symptoms, including recurrent nightmares, as well as adverse reactions in the school setting. The current study examined nightmare symptoms, posttraumatic stress, sleep disturbance, and self- and teacher-reported school functioning of 64 youths in the Gaza Strip, ages 12 to 16, who have lived through three wars and experience ongoing conflict and political insecurity. Students were treatment-seeking for sleep-problems and reported, on average, five nightmares per week for an average of three years, with concomitant disrupted sleep, fear of going to sleep, and not feeling rested in the morning. Both teachers and students reported that participants exhibited impaired academic functioning and daytime sleepiness. The content of the students’ nightmares demonstrated frightening themes of being under attack and loss of self-efficacy/control; threat levels were high, and almost 60% included the threat of death. Approximately half of the nightmares included surreal elements in addition to more realistic scenes of violence. Participants in the study demonstrated substantial posttraumatic sleep problems with intensely distressing, frequent and chronic nightmares, andnightmare symptoms were associated with impairment in school functioning. Given the disruptive and distressing nature of these students’ nightmare disturbance, we suggest that increasing self-efficacy in relation to the experience of recurrent nightmares may be a good point of intervention with these recurrently traumatized youth. Thus, increasing the understanding of students’ nightmare symptoms may lead to ameliorating the suffering of youths in war zones and may have positive effects on their school functioning. Public Library of Science 2020-11-25 /pmc/articles/PMC7688112/ /pubmed/33237929 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242414 Text en © 2020 Harb, Schultz http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Harb, Gerlinde C.
Schultz, Jon-Håkon
The nature of posttraumatic nightmares and school functioning in war-affected youth
title The nature of posttraumatic nightmares and school functioning in war-affected youth
title_full The nature of posttraumatic nightmares and school functioning in war-affected youth
title_fullStr The nature of posttraumatic nightmares and school functioning in war-affected youth
title_full_unstemmed The nature of posttraumatic nightmares and school functioning in war-affected youth
title_short The nature of posttraumatic nightmares and school functioning in war-affected youth
title_sort nature of posttraumatic nightmares and school functioning in war-affected youth
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7688112/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33237929
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242414
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