Post-traumatic stress disorder in children after television programmes
- 5 February 1994
- Vol. 308 (6925) , 389-390
- https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.308.6925.389
Abstract
Post-traumatic stress disorder in children is now well documented,1 although as recently as 1985 Garmezy and Rutter argued against the need for a diagnostic category, particularly as amnesia, psychic numbing, and intrusive flashbacks had not been reported in child survivors of disasters.2 On Hallowe'en (31 October) 1992 a programme with the title Ghostwatch was shown on television. Four months later two 10 year old boys were referred separately by their general practitioners to the child psychiatry unit at our hospital. Post-traumatic stress disorder was diagnosed, based on the criteria in the International Classification of Disease, tenth revision (ICD-10) and Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, third edition, revised (DSM-III-R). We report here these two cases. ### Case 1 This boy had been frightened by Ghostwatch and had refused …Keywords
This publication has 1 reference indexed in Scilit:
- Verbally Mediated Childhood Post-traumatic Stress DisorderThe British Journal of Psychiatry, 1992