Does a parent's trauma shape how their children age?
Adult children of Holocaust survivors whose parents had probable PTSD were in poorer physical shape as they aged, and their own trauma-related distress about the parent's experience statistically accounted for much of that link.
Source
Parental Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms Are Related to Successful Aging in Offspring of Holocaust Survivors
Study at a glance
- Design
- Cross-sectional — Two cross-sectional group comparisons (offspring of survivors with vs without parental probable PTSD vs comparison offspring) with bootstrapped mediation analyses
- N
- N=101 · Study 1: 101 adult offspring (69 offspring of Holocaust survivors, 32 comparisons) rating their parents' PTSD; Study 2: 154 parent-offspring dyads (90 Holocaust dyads, 64 comparison dyads), parents self-reporting PTSD
- Population
- Jewish Israeli middle-aged and older adult offspring of Holocaust survivors and of parents without a Holocaust background (and, in Study 2, the parents themselves)
- Outcome
- Offspring objective successful aging (medical conditions, disability, somatic symptoms) and subjective aging perceptions, with secondary traumatization as mediator
Structured fields used in claim comparison tables when every cited study has a complete layer.
What they did
In Study 1, 101 adult offspring (middle-aged and older) completed online questionnaires rating each parent's PTSD symptoms, their own secondary traumatization (distress about the parent's trauma), and measures of health and attitudes to ageing. Study 2 recruited 154 parent-offspring pairs; this time the elderly parents reported their own PTSD symptoms and the offspring reported secondary traumatization, health and anxiety. Offspring were grouped as children of survivors with a probably-PTSD parent, children of survivors without, or comparison offspring, and mediation models tested whether secondary traumatization explained group differences.
What they found
In Study 1, offspring whose parents had probable PTSD had worse objective aging (more medical conditions, disability and somatic symptoms) and higher secondary traumatization than both other groups, and saw old age more as a time of loss than offspring of survivors without parental PTSD. In both studies, secondary traumatization significantly mediated the group effect on objective aging, with effect sizes in the medium range. In Study 2, both groups of survivors' offspring aged less well than comparisons, and the link held after controlling for offspring anxiety and parental age.
The limits
What it doesn't show
Both studies are cross-sectional convenience samples, so the mediation analyses cannot show that parental PTSD causes secondary traumatization which then causes poorer health; the ordering is assumed. All health and PTSD measures are self-reports, and in Study 1 the offspring rated their own parents' symptoms, so a single informant supplied predictor, mediator and outcome. The parental-PTSD subgroups were small (only 15 dyads in Study 2), too small to separate mothers' from fathers' effects, and the samples were likely skewed toward well-educated internet users. The epigenetic and stress-hormone explanations in the discussion were not measured.
Key terms
- Intergenerational transmission of trauma
- The idea that the psychological effects of a trauma experienced by parents can be passed on to children who did not experience it themselves.
- Secondary traumatization
- Trauma-like distress symptoms (such as intrusive thoughts or avoidance) that a person develops in response to someone else's traumatic experience, here a parent's.
- Successful aging
- A broad view of healthy ageing; here split into objective indicators (illness, disability, bodily symptoms) and subjective attitudes toward growing old.
- Mediation analysis
- A statistical test of whether the relationship between two variables runs partly through a third, intermediate variable.
- Probable PTSD
- A score above a cut-off on a PTSD symptom checklist that suggests a likely diagnosis, without a clinical interview.
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Quiz yourself
What was the main role of secondary traumatization in the analyses?
Common questions
Does this prove that parental PTSD damages children's health?
No. The data were collected at one time point from convenience samples, so the pattern fits that account but cannot rule out other explanations such as shared family environment, genetics or reporting style.
Why did Study 2 matter if Study 1 already found the effect?
In Study 1 offspring rated their parents' PTSD, so one person reported everything. Study 2 had parents report their own symptoms, which removes that single-informant problem and still found a similar mediation effect.
Were the offspring simply suffering from PTSD themselves?
The authors tried to rule this out: Study 1 excluded offspring with probable PTSD and Study 2 controlled for offspring anxiety, and the effects remained.
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