The influence of social support on posttraumatic stress symptoms among children and adolescents: a scoping review and meta-analysis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Several risk and protective factors play a role in the development of posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) in children and youth. The evidence for social support (SS) as a protective factor is rising; however, a review of the evidence is lacking. This scoping review and meta-analysis aims to map out and synthesize the present research on the influence of social support on PTSS in children and adolescents. The literature searched through PubMed, MEDLINE, Embase, PsycInfo, and CINAHL identified 3629 abstracts. Ninety articles published from 1999 to 2020 were selected, including a total of 77,439 participants. Most papers focused on social and emotional support from family members (36/88) and peers (26/88); other types of support (e.g., informational support and support from professionals) were not widely reported. The cross-sectional studies illustrated an overall significant, but weak, negative correlation between global social support and PTSS. A similar weak negative association was found between family support and PTSS. The association between peer support and PTSS was not significant. For longitudinal studies, 4 of 5 indicated that SS was a significant negative predictor of PTSS. There was conceptual, methodological, and statistical heterogeneity of the identified studies. This review suggests a weak negative relationship between global SS and PTSS in children and adolescents. Higher global SS was related to less PTSS. The evidence regarding family support revealed a more stable negative relationship with PTSS than that for peer support. Investigating social support without specifying the form of support confounds the effect. Studies on informational, teacher, or professional support seem to be lacking. More studies are needed on the longitudinal effects of SS on PTSS. This study aims to review current knowledge on the influence of SS on children and adolescents with traumatic experiences and/or posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS).A systematic search strategy identified 3629 abstracts, among which 90 quantitative articles were selected.Our review found that there was a weak negative relationship between global SS and PTSS in children and adolescents and that family support showed a more robust protective effect than peer support. This study aims to review current knowledge on the influence of SS on children and adolescents with traumatic experiences and/or posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS). A systematic search strategy identified 3629 abstracts, among which 90 quantitative articles were selected. Our review found that there was a weak negative relationship between global SS and PTSS in children and adolescents and that family support showed a more robust protective effect than peer support.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.016 | 0.041 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.018 | 0.031 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.012 | 0.011 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".