February 9, 2021
children who have been exposed to war-related traumas or terrorism as well as the variety of war casualties and associated psychological trauma. The psychological responses to war-related stressors are categorized as
- little or no reaction
- acute emotional and behavioral effects
- long-term effects.
Specific categories of war-related casualties discussed include refugee status, traumatic bereavement, effects of parental absence, and child soldiers. Psychological responses associated with terrorism and bioterrorism are presented. Lastly, mediators of the psychological response to war-related stressors are discussed, to include exposure effects, gender effects, parental, family and social factors, and child-specific factors.
Children exposed to war-related stressors experience a spectrum of psychological morbidities including posttraumatic stress symptomatology, mood disorders, externalizing and disruptive behaviors, and somatic symptoms determined by exposure dose effect. All the things that is happening around Tigray is just sad to even think of. That is war, you cannot isolate the kids, unless you can somehow manage to extricate them from the arena before the conflict commences. A highly impractical exercise to say the least. Theatres of war are not school playing areas. Anyone caught in such zones, during times of conflict become collateral casualties; their ages do not come into it.
