[The current status of post-traumatic stress syndrome in children]

The Disorder of Post-Traumatic Stress belongs to the category of Anxiety Disorders. It consists of a group of symptoms which develop, with a variable period of latency, after an event which is outside the range of usual human experience and generally generates a feeling of intense fear in the child. The typical characteristic resulting clinical picture resembles that observed in adults (reexperiencing the traumatic event, persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma, neuro-vegetative hyperactivity) and is molded by the child's development. The long-term outcome of this disorder remains unclear; but it appears to be most favorable in children than in adults. Several factors could either "predispose" the child to this disorder or "protect" him (her) from it: the degree and duration of exposure to the traumatic event, the nature of the trauma, the presence of preexisting psychiatric conditions, the level of cognitive development and gender of the child, and the presence or absence of family support. Those therapeutic approaches which have demonstrated their usefulness in adults (group therapy, psychodynamic individual therapy...) remain to be applied to children and evaluated in this age group.