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Adoptive parents face the emotional impact of parenting a child with adverse and often traumatic early experiences. The current qualitative study explores the experiences of adoptive parents who display heightened trauma symptoms relating to their child's previous experiences and challenging current behaviours. In total, 10 adoptive parents reporting high levels of trauma symptoms on a quantitative screening measure, the revised Impact of Events Scale (IES-R), were interviewed by telephone to explore their experiences of being an adoptive parent. From the thematic analysis, four main themes were generated: direct trauma, the emotional impact of parenting, support network and sense of self as a parent. The findings suggested that how the parents experience their child's early trauma, the current parenting demands, including child-to-parent violence, and the presence of lack of support are important factors in the adoptive parents' trauma response, which all draw together to influence the parents' sense of self. The clinical implications of the findings about the trauma experience of adoptive parents, and importantly their relevance for addressing child-to-parent violence, are discussed along with factors, such as parents' support networks, that determine their evaluations of their competence and sense of self as a parent. The limitations of this study and recommendations for further research are also discussed. Plain Language Summary: Being an adoptive parent has many emotional challenges, including the knowledge of your child's traumatic early experiences and managing challenging behaviours as a result of this experience. In this study we aimed to explore how adoptive parents experience their child's early life trauma and their current challenging behaviours. We spoke to 10 adoptive parents, who had high levels of trauma symptoms themselves, to explore their experiences using a semi-structured interview. We then analysed the findings, which highlighted four main themes: the impact of direct trauma through their current experiences in parenting, which included child-to-parent violence; the emotional impact of parenting children who have experienced early life trauma; the importance of their support network of family, friends and other adoptive parents; and finally, their sense of self as a parent, which related to the stigma, judgement and additional pressure of being an adoptive parent. Overall, the findings outline the emotional and traumatic impact of parenting a child who has experienced early life trauma. This was related in part to the knowledge of what their child had been through, but also predominantly the current challenges they were living with as a result of their child's early experiences, and in particular child-to-parent violence. The findings have important implications for clinicians, services and post-adoption support agencies. The current study is the first known exploration of adoptive parents displaying high trauma symptoms. It highlights the need for recognition of trauma responses in adoptive parents, and in particular the extent and severity of child-to-parent violence. Training should be provided to raise awareness of child-to-parent violence, alongside clinical interventions for adoptive parents living through the trauma. The study highlights the value of support from others for parents, which emphasises the vital importance of adoption support groups, often provided by charities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and purpose: Between 2019 and 2022, there was a marked rise in adolescents/young adults seeking urgent help for functional tic‐like behaviours (FTLBs). Given the global scale of this phenomenon, we aimed to pool cases from different institutions in an international registry to better characterize this spectrum and facilitate future longitudinal observation. Methods: An international collaborative group from 10 tertiary referral centres for tic disorders collected retrospective data on FTLB patients who sought specialists' attention between the last quarter of 2019 and June 2022. An audit procedure was used for collection of data, which comprised demographics, course of presentation and duration, precipitating and predisposing factors, phenomenology, comorbidities, and pharmacological treatment outcome. Results: During the study period, we collected data on 294 patients with FTLBs, 97% of whom were adolescents and young adults and 87% of whom were female. FTLBs were found to have a peak of severity within 1 month in 70% of patients, with spontaneous remissions in 20%, and a very high frequency of complex movements (85%) and vocalizations (81%). Less than one‐fifth of patients had pre‐existing primary tic disorder, 66% had comorbid anxiety disorders, 28% comorbid depressive disorders, 24% autism spectrum disorder and 23% attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Almost 60% explicitly reported exposure to tic‐related social media content. The vast majority of pharmacologically treated patients did not report benefit with tic‐suppressing medications. Conclusions: Our data from the largest multicentre registry of FTLBs to date confirm substantial clinical differences from primary tic disorders. Social modelling was the most relevant contributing factor during the pandemic. Future longitudinal analyses from this database may help understand treatment approaches and responsiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Aim: Clinical centres have seen an increase in tic-like movements during the COVID-19 pandemic. A series of children and adolescents are described.Methods: A retrospective chart review of 34 consecutive paediatric patients presenting with sudden onset tic-like movements, seen over 6 months.Results: 94% of patients were female, with an average age of sudden onset or increase of tic-like movements of 13.7 years. 44% had a previous diagnosis of tics, and 47% initially presented to an emergency department. Comorbid psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders were reported in 91% with 68% reporting anxiety.Conclusion: We highlight a dramatic presentation of sudden onset functional tic-like movements in predominantly female adolescents to help inform identification and management. There is need to research the neurobiological underpinnings and environmental exacerbating factors leading to these presentations and to explore effective therapeutic strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: Secondary trauma is recognised as one of the negative effects for professionals working with people that have experienced trauma. Research has demonstrated secondary trauma in foster carers but little research has explored trauma symptoms within adoptive parents, facing the emotional impact of parenting a child with adverse early experiences. This study aimed to document the rates of primary and secondary trauma symptoms in adoptive parents. It further explores the association between the extent of current behavioural and emotional challenges and the extent of the child's pre-adoption adverse experiences in predicting parental trauma responses., Method: 190 adoptive parents completed an online survey including self-report measures of primary and secondary trauma., Results: Almost one fifth of adoptive parents exhibited primary trauma scores of clinical concern; with 10% reaching the threshold for a probable diagnosis of PTSD. Participants also reported significantly higher levels of secondary trauma and burnout, and significantly lower levels of compassion satisfaction than population norms. The current behavioural and emotional challenges, including child-to-parent violence, predicted higher trauma scores more so than the extent of their child's past adverse experiences., Conclusions: The findings have clinical implications for identifying trauma symptoms within adoptive parents and wider implications for how we understand secondary and primary trauma. They further highlight the importance of firstly addressing current child behaviour, including child-to-parent violence when treating trauma symptoms. Limitations of this study and recommendations for further research are discussed., Competing Interests: Declaration of conflicting interestsThe author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was undertaken as part of a DClinPsy degree to Morvwen Duncan.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to identify the most appropriate measure of quality of life (QoL) for patients living with and beyond cancer., Methods: One hundred eighty-two people attending cancer clinics in Central London at various stages post-treatment, completed a series of QoL measures: FACT-G, EORTC QLQ-C30 , IOCv2 (positive and negative subscales) and WEMWBS, a wellbeing measure. These measures were chosen as the commonest measures used in previous research. Correlation tests were used to assess the association between scales. Participants were also asked about pertinence and ease of completion., Results: There was a significant positive correlation between the four domain scores of the two health-related QoL measures (.32 ≤ r ≤ .72, P < .001), and a significant large negative correlation between these and the negative IOCv2 subscale scores (- .39 ≤ r ≤ - .63, P < .001). There was a significant moderate positive correlation between positive IOCv2 subscale and WEMWBS scores (r = .35, P < .001). However, neither the FACT-G nor the EORTC showed any significant correlation with the positive IOCv2 subscale. Participants rated all measures similarly with regards to pertinence and ease of use., Conclusion: There was little to choose between FACT-G, EORTC, and the negative IOC scales, any of which may be used to measure QoL. However, the two IOCv2 subscales capture unique aspects of QoL compared to the other measures. The IOCv2 can be used to identify those cancer survivors who would benefit from interventions to improve their QoL and to target specific needs thereby providing more holistic and personalised care beyond cancer treatment., (© 2021. The Author(s).)