Youth Experiences of Parent Incarceration: Doing Time From Both Sides.

In 2015-2016, an estimated 6 million children in the United States had at least one parent incarcerated. Children of incarcerated parents experience physical, mental, social, and economic consequences, including migraines, asthma, depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder, school dropout, and homelessness. The purpose of the current phenomenological study was to gain an in-depth understanding of the experiences of youth who have or have had an incarcerated parent. Narratives were gathered from a sample of 15 individuals ages 13 to 19 attending a 1-year long workshop entitled Peace Makers. The rich text revealed shared experiences of disrupted homes, unfulfilled visits and promises, and social isolation captured by the following themes: At Home No More; "To Feel Her…Kiss Her Cheek"; "Waiting at the Door"; and "Trapped in an Isolation Box." Care providers must develop an empathic understanding of affected youth to facilitate healing, restore dignity, and advocate for their rights. [Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services, 57(6), 22-29.].

Measuring depression and PTSD after trauma: common scales and checklists.

Traumatic injury is an important public health problem secondary to high levels of morbidity and mortality. Injured survivors face several physical, emotional, and financial repercussions that can significantly impact their lives as well as their family. Depression and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are the most common psychiatric sequelae associated with traumatic injury. Factors affecting the prevalence of these psychiatric symptoms include: concomitant TBI, the timing of assessment of depression and PTSD, the type of injury, premorbid, sociodemographic, and cultural factors, and co-morbid medical conditions and medication side effects. The appropriate assessment of depression and PTSD is critical to an understanding of the potential consequences of these disorders as well as the development of appropriate behavioural and pharmacological treatments. The reliability and validity of screening instruments and structured clinical interviews used to assess depression and PTSD must be considered. Common self-report instruments and structured clinical interviews used to assess depression and PTSD and their reliability and validity are described. Future changes in diagnostic criteria for depression and PTSD and recent initiatives by the National Institute of Health regarding patient-reported outcomes may result in new methods of assessing these psychiatric sequelae of traumatic injury.