The longitudinal impact of war exposure on psychopathology in Syrian and Iraqi refugee youth.

Background: War and natural disasters lead to forced migration - and increased risk of adverse psychological outcomes - in approximately 1% of the global population. Though recent years have brought a greater understanding of the consequences of war exposure on mental health outcomes for refugee children, little is known about the longitudinal and developmental impact of these experiences on youth.

Aims: The aim of this study was to assess the effect of direct exposure to war and/or combat on trajectories of symptoms related to anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in Syrian and Iraqi refugee youth following resettlement.

The fear that remains: Associations between trauma, related psychopathology, and fear-potentiated startle in youth resettled as refugees.

Fear-potentiated startle (FPS) can be used to measure fear and safety learning-behaviors affected by trauma that may map onto posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Therefore, FPS could be a candidate biomarker of trauma-related psychopathology and a potential identifier of trauma-exposed youth in need of focused treatment. We enrolled n = 71 (35 females, M  = 12.