A Systematic Review on Intergenerational Transmission of Genocide-Related Trauma

Countries and populations across the world continue to face exposure to civil war, particularly genocide. The impacts of genocide-related trauma have been shown to last for decades, leaving lifetime impacts on the survivors and their offspring. Despite unique cultural contexts and conditions, genocides across the world share many common descriptions in nature. This systematic review on intergenerational effects of genocide-related trauma aims to better understand the state of knowledge and implications for the impacts on subsequent generations. This review focuses on the methodology and the mechanism of transmission explored in the peer-reviewed articles. With the total of 36 studies included for this review, the findings highlighted a few methodology gaps in the lack of mixed-method research designs, differences in key themes of focus, and lack of holistic approach to necessarily capture trauma exposure and its outcomes in subsequent generations. This review also revealed the shared trauma exposure among genocide survivors and the underlying mechanisms of trauma transmission across countries with genocide history. The mechanism of trauma transmission via the parenting style, parent-child attachment, and family functioning are shown to be comparable across diverse cultural contexts. Given the complexity of genocide trauma and because specific parenting values and the characters of family functioning are culturally and contextually unique, theoretically sound methodology and measurement are necessary for future evidence-based research to tackle the complex and contextual factors of genocidal trauma and the transmission mechanism. The findings contribute to better understanding of the critical gaps in this important area of research and practice.