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Family and social factors

How are family and social factors related to risk for PTSD?

Personal characteristics, such as family factors, can influence one’s degree of risk for developing PTSD. How such personal characteristics may affect the development of PTSD would be influenced by other personal characteristics as well as differences in the trauma experience itself.

What is the evidence on family and social factors on risk for PTSD?

Moderate to low quality found small increases in rates of PTSD following earthquakes in adults with low vs. high SES, low vs. high employment, and low vs. high social support. This quality evidence also found a small increase in PTSD symptoms following a burn injury in unmarried vs. married patients.

Moderate to high quality evidence found low social support was associated with more PTSD symptoms following childbirth. There were no associations between PTSD following childbirth and socio-economic factors or marital status. This quality evidence also found associations between more PTSD symptoms in children and adolescents following any trauma and poor family functioning, low social support, low SES, and pre- and post-trauma parental psychological problems.

August 2021

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Last updated at: 2:05 am, 12th October 2021
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Fact Sheet Technical Commentary

NeuRA Libraries

Title Colour Legend:
Green - Topic summary is available.
Orange - Topic summary is being compiled.
Red - Topic summary has no current systematic review available.