Teaching Trauma Content in Higher Education: A Systematic Literature Review.

Higher education must prepare future mental health providers to work with individuals who have been exposed to trauma. This is vital to the success of students' practice, many of whom would benefit from trauma reduction strategies in their own lives. The purpose of this systematic review is to summarize the knowledge base on teaching methods that may reduce the potential that trauma content in the classroom could cause: (a) re-traumatization; (b) vicarious traumatization; or (c) secondary traumatic stress (collectively "adverse consequences") in higher education students. This systematic review was conducted following PRISMA-P guidelines. A total of 27 peer-reviewed articles met the inclusion criteria, which included studies that focused on teaching methods that were used to teach trauma content for students in higher education, peer-reviewed articles, and articles published in English before February 12, 2020. Studies were identified based on key words and the full-text articles were reviewed by two authors who discussed discrepancies until consensus was obtained. Researchers recommend using a variety of teaching approaches, from teaching about self-care to journaling. However, the major findings showed that few studies analyzed the effectiveness of these methods, and that therefore, the effectiveness of various methods to address the adverse consequences of teaching trauma content is unknown. Further research is needed, including cross-sectional and longitudinal studies in this area.

Adverse childhood experiences and mental health conditions among multiracial adolescents.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to verify the factor structure of the household dysfunction type of ACE using data from the National Survey of Children's Health (NSCH), and then examine whether household dysfunction (measured as a latent construct) was associated with mental health conditions among multiracial adolescents. DESIGN: We used cross-sectional data collected in 2016 from caregivers who completed the NSCH and analyzed data from a subpopulation of adolescents (12-17) who reported more than one race (n = 1,231). Mplus 8.4 was used to conduct confirmatory factor analysis and probit models from a structural equation modeling framework. RESULTS: Results from this study indicated that the household dysfunction type of ACE, as a latent construct, had good model fit and was significantly associated with depression [standardized coefficient [B] = .50, 95% confidence interval [CI] .36, .65], anxiety [B = .61, 95% CI .48, .73], behavior problems [B = .58, 95% CI .44, .72], and ADHD [B = .54, 95% CI .38, .69] for multiracial adolescents. CONCLUSIONS: Household dysfunction may result in adolescents being separated (physically or emotionally) from their caregivers, which may hinder adolescents' ability to establish or maintain one of the most important relationships needed to promote racial/ethnic identity development and mental health. Implications for advancements in theory and NSCH are presented.