“Complex” Posttraumatic Stress Disorder/Disorders of Extreme Stress (CP/DES) in Sexually Abused Children: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

ABSTRACT The syndrome of “Complex” Posttraumatic Stress Disorder/Disorders of Extreme Stress (CP/DES) has been proposed to describe symptoms, inadequately characterized by PTSD, reported by adult survivors of repeated interpersonal trauma. This study explores whether CP/DES characterizes the responses of sexually abused children, some of whom have sustained multiple interpersonal trauma. Three groups of young sexually abused children (i.e., Full-PTSD, Partial-PTSD, Non-PTSD; n = 99) were compared on seven child CP/DES indices. Children with PTSD exhibited more CP/DES symptoms within a greater number of CP/DES categories than Partial- or Non-PTSD groups. The relationship between cumulative trauma and total number of CP/DES symptoms revealed that as the cumulative number of types of trauma increased the number of CP/DES symptoms rose. These results suggest that CP/DES also characterizes sexually abused children, especially those who have been multiply maltreated, and offers a more developmentally-appropriate framework for assessment and treatment than PTSD. KEYWORDS: PTSDchild sexual abusedisorders of extreme stressmultiple maltreatment