Adverse Childhood Experiences And Posttraumatic Stress Disorder In Juvenile Delinquents

According to developmental psychopathology,individual development is influenced by dynamic interactions between factors at different stages of development.Early childhood adversities have serious psychopathological consequences on later development.Posttraumatic stress disorder is a risk factor for juvenile delinquency and recidivism.General strain theory states that,posttraumatic stress disorder patients are highly sensitive to stressful situations and easily form anger,which prompts individuals to commit violent crimes to achieve emotional release.After exposing to adverse childhood experiences,the process of building resilience can help individuals adapt well and reduce the risk of posttraumatic stress disorder.As the basis for selfdevelopment,autobiographical memory may exhibit overgeneralization due to functional avoidance of negative emotions during retrieval,which directly affects the development of posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms.In addition,overgeneral autobiographical memory may undermine self-developmental functions and affect the construction of resilience.Therefore,the study introduced overgeneral autobiographical memory and resilience as mediating variables,and take the juvenile delinquents as the participants to explore the chain mediating effect of the two between adverse childhood experiences and posttraumatic stress disorder.In this study,350 juvenile offenders were investigated by means of questionnaires and explore influence pathway between variables after validating measurement tools.There are three paths to explore.First to investigate the mediating role of overgeneral autobiographical memory between adverse childhood experiences and posttraumatic stress disorder,then examine the mediating role of resilience between adverse childhood experiences and posttraumatic stress disorder,and finally overgeneral autobiographical memory is associated with resilience to form a chain mediating model between adverse childhood experiences and posttraumatic stress disorder.The conclusions are as follows:(1)Based on the data of the study,97.4% of juvenile offenders experienced at least one adverse childhood experience,and 67.4% of juvenile offenders experienced four or more adverse childhood experiences.(2)The adverse childhood experiences of juvenile delinquents were significantly positively correlated with posttraumatic stress disorder.The more adverse childhood experiences,the higher the symptom level of posttraumatic stress disorder.(3)Overgeneral autobiographical memory partially mediates the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and posttraumatic stress disorder,and adverse childhood experiences exacerbate posttraumatic stress disorder risk by decreasing autobiographical memory specificity.(4)Resilience partially mediates the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and posttraumatic stress disorder.(5)Overgeneral autobiographical memory and resilience form a chain mediating model between adverse childhood experiences and posttraumatic stress disorder,and overgeneral autobiographical memory is a factor affecting the construction of resilience.This study demonstrates that overgeneral autobiographical memory and resilience play a chain mediating role between adverse childhood experiences and posttraumatic stress disorder.Generally,juvenile delinquents exposed to more adverse childhood experiences,and those people who have exposed to adverse childhood experiences characterized the overgeneral autobiographical memory significantly.And then affect the construction of resilience,and ultimately increase the risk of posttraumatic stress disorder.Therefore,posttraumatic stress disorder intervention for juvenile offenders can restore self-development by constructing autobiographical memory,thereby increasing the level of resilience.