Trauma in children/adolescents: a special focus on Third World countries

This paper presents a literature review on trauma in children/adolescents with a specific focus on Third World countries. We reviewed the literature starting from 1990 to 2003 using electronic bibliographic databases. Results indicate that out of the 306 references selected for the review, 32 studies were conducted on children/adolescents in African countries compared to 67 studies in Asian countries, 61 in Middle Eastern countries, 46 in Latin American countries and 53 in Eastern European countries. The few promising studies on PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) in Africa have mostly been conducted in African-English-speaking countries, implying a need for research on PTSD in Francophone countries. Findings also show that existing literature on African children/adolescents is largely focussed on PTSD in relation to stressors such as war and political violence. Future research should be extended to include the impact of different types of traumatic events such as natural disasters, confinement in refugee camps, massive internal displacement, sexual abuse and mass killing on African children/adolescents to expand the knowledge base in this area. In addition, more work is needed to understand the effects of culture, gender, age and ethnicity on trauma in children/adolescents to allow for better provision of health services.