Almost four in ten young people in Northern Ireland have experienced some form of childhood trauma.
That’s according to a recently published study by researchers from Queen’s University of Belfast (QUB) and Ulster University (UU).
It suggested that boys were more likely to report being threatened, injured, witnessed violence, or experienced violence.
Girls, on the other hand, reported sexual harassment online more often than boys.
The study on the prevalence of childhood trauma in Northern Ireland has just been published in the Journal of Child and Adolescent Trauma.
The results are based on information from a representative sample of nearly 1,300 young people aged 11-19 in Northern Ireland.
It follows previous research which found that anxiety and depression are 25% more common among children and young people in Northern Ireland than elsewhere in the UK.
Trauma is defined as “exposure to an extremely threatening or terrifying event or series of events”.
Traumatic childhood events can include experiencing or witnessing violence at school or at home, online sexual harassment, sexual assault, or suffering a serious injury.
Of nearly 1,300 young people who took part in the UU and QUB study, 478 reported having experienced at least one traumatic event.
However, about one in five (259) had experienced multiple traumatic events.
The authors said that reported exposure to trauma “is more common among young people in Northern Ireland compared to other British nations”.
Similar studies in England and Wales have shown that a lower proportion of young people have experienced childhood trauma compared to Northern Ireland.
Possible explanations for higher trauma rates in Northern Ireland included the ongoing impact of the riots, including “marginalisation, socio-economic adversity, social disadvantage and intermittent instances of inter-community violence,” the study said.
However, the UU and QUB study found little evidence that young people were more likely to experience trauma if their parents experienced trauma during the riots.
The study’s authors therefore said that more detailed research is needed into whether parental trauma during the riots increases the risk of trauma for children today.
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However, having a parent with “mental health problems” increased a young person’s risk of “witnessing family violence and online sexual harassment,” according to the study.
“It is possible that parental psychopathology increases a young person’s risk of online sexual harassment through poorer monitoring of the young person and their online activities.”
While boys in the study were more likely to report being subjected to violence, girls were more likely to report being sexually harassed online.
While relatively few young people who took part in the study reported experiencing sexual abuse, the authors said this may be because some may not want to disclose what happened to them.
The study also suggested that young people from disadvantaged backgrounds or those who were in ‘alien care’ were at a higher risk of experiencing trauma.
The research was carried out by Dr. Lisa Bunting from QUB and Professor Mark Shevlin, Professor Jamie Murphy, Dr. Orla McBride and Dr. Enya Redican – all from Ulster University – conducted.
The Ministry of Education (DE) recently launched a training program for school staff to raise awareness of the impact of trauma on children.
In response, some school leaders said they expect more of their students to have experienced trauma as a result of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the restrictions.
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