The 1st GCTS conference last December in Cape Town, South Africa, was a big success. In this newsletter, conference chair Soraya Seedat is looking back. We are also announcing the 2nd GCTS conference in New Delhi, India, Feb 2025! However, there was one thing: among the feedback we got was that people were hesitant to reach out to us (chairs, steering committee members, project leaders): "You have no idea how intimidating you are". Having met us in person, it wasn’t all that scary after all, was it? So please don't hesitate to reach out and join! This newsletter gives a preview of how vibrant this collaborative community is in working together on topics of global importace when it comes to traumatic stress. Find out where you can join, how you can benefit from GCTS resources or what events to attend!
Miranda Olff - Chair
Ulrich Schnyder - Co-chair Please visit the GCTS website >> Previous newsletters Follow us on Twitter:@Global_Trauma or LinkedIn Global Collaboration on Traumatic Stress |
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1st GCTS conference December 2023 Cape Town a big succes Soraya Seedat is enthusiastically looking back at the 1st GCTS conference. It was by all accounts a resounding success. It was attended by over 160 participants spanning 21 countries. The programme of oral and poster presentations provided rich pickings, diverse content, and interesting discourse over the three days - all in a relaxed, intimate, and socially pleasant setting. For a photo impression and more. |
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Cultural adaptations of PTSD interventions The project Cultural Adaptations of PTSD Interventions: A Narrative Review seeks to address ongoing challenges and tensions related to the cultural adaptation of evidence-based therapeutic interventions, and provide key recommendations concerning the necessary, delicate balance between cultural specificity, treatment efficacy, and intervention applicability at scale. A particular focus is being set on geographical, gender, cultural, and ethnic representation amongst co-authors. For any questions, or to express your interest, please contact the project leader, Stéfanie Fréel. |
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Student members wanted! We are very pleased to have Dan Jenkins joining the GCTS steering committee as the new GCTS student section leader. The GCTS has a vibrant student section that’s looking for new members! Whether you’re looking for advice on joining a project or have a research idea of your own that you’d like to start working on, we’d love to have you on board. If you’re interested, complete the survey or contact Dan Jenkins if you have any questions. |
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Trauma exposure and trauma disorders in adolescents around the world This new project focuses on children and adolescents around the world who are not often studied in national, epidemiological studies of trauma exposure and trauma disorders. They can be hard to access, and they do not represent a strong lobby group to get help after traumatization. Nevertheless, it is important to focus on these age groups to prevent or reduce trauma exposure and help children with trauma sequelae. We are looking for global partners! If you are interested read more and contact Ask Elklit. |
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Treatments across cultures There are evidence-based interventions for addressing trauma-related symptoms like PTSD, depression, and anxiety, they have predominantly been developed in Western countries. More research is needed on whether and how interventions are affective in other communities and populations. For the GCTS theme Interventions and treatments for trauma-related disorders across cultures we have an excellent co-lead: Luzimar Vega (bio). Together with Debra Kaisen this team brings lots of cross-cultural expertise. Reach out to Luzimar if you would like to contribute |
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Kick-off project group on sexual violence related pregnancies This February the project group for the global collaboration on sexual violence related pregnancies (SALIENT) met for the first time to discuss a collaboration. The project group is driven to give a voice to these women that acknowledges the complexity of the individual experience in different societies. The project group, with members from South Africa, Portugal, Indonesia, United Kingdom, United States and the Netherlands, will continue to work on the development and implementation of a qualitative study. As we aim for a global representation in our group we are still looking for members. Please contact Elisa van Ee |
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AI supported systematic reviews Planning embarking on a systematic review? The GCTS is eager to make research easier for all around the world and thus supports freely available methods for doing systematic reviews such as ASReview. A common challenge faced by old-school reviewers is the lack of time to review everything thoroughly. ASReview assists in identifying eligible papers for the systematic review and is streamlining the process. Read more. Contact Bruno Coimbra for questions or ideas. |
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Feel free to use our data! In line with FAIR data principles we aim to make trauma related data sets available for other users. We currently have 36 data sets listed. The most recent data set added is that of >10.000 GPSs; see Global Psychotrauma Screen (GPS) - Global dataset. Anyone interested to study for instance gender aspects or global diversity in responses to trauma, feel free to use them! Where are your datasets? List them here! |
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Assessing prolonged grief: Swedish Traumatic Grief Inventory-Self Report Plus (TGI-SR+) Results of this study among 248 bereaved parents support the reliability and validity of the Swedish TGI-SR+ as a screening instrument for DSM-5-TR and ICD-11 prolonged grief disorder in research and bereavement care. See Lenferink et al (2024) below. |
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| | COVID Unmasked: How did COVID-19 impact mental health of young children and their caregivers? The COVID Unmasked Turkish and Dutch study teams have recently had papers published from their longitudinal study to help understand and track the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health and wellbeing of young children (1-5 years) and their caregivers:
- Factors associated with mental health of young children during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands (Krijnen et al., 2023)
- Mental Health Difficulties of Turkish Healthcare Workers and Non-Healthcare Workers and Their Young Children During Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic (Seçinti et al., 2023) | | |
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| | ON TRACK is ON TRACK We have worked hard within ON TRACK last year. The first proceeds have already been received. Our first review article is a fact. Conclusion: There are developments into the relationship between biomarkers and cognitive decline in people with PTSD, but the overall evidence is still low. We have suggestions to improve this research field. We will also complete our position paper in 2024 - with four more structured reviews in the production phase. We are on track with ON TRACK! | | |
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| | Screening teenagers for reactions to trauma The Global psychotrauma Screen Teen (GPS-T) is a very brief measure to assess a range of reactions to trauma in teenagers. Two new international studies have been completed and published, confirming its psychometric properties (Bi et al., 2024; Koutsopoulou, et al., 2024). See publications below. | | |
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| | Award winners 1st GCTS Conference Three esteemed jury members, Eva Alisic, Monique Pfaltz and Georgina Spies, carefully listened to the flash talk poster presentations (see program) and evaluated them for scientific rigor, originality, creativity and presentation. The following persons were awarded with a shared first price (alphabetically): Megan Bailey, University of Bath, UK Lindokuhle Tyelo, University of Cape Town, South Africa Amy-Jean Viljoen, University of the Western Cape, South Africa
Congratulations to all! | | |
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| | Apply for the upcoming ISTSS annual meeting registration fees waiver GCTS members (register here for free) can apply for conference registration fee waivers, see here for all available waivers. Apply now for the upcoming ISTSS annual meeting in Boston! Here individuals who come from LMICs and to present on GCTS projects can apply. Last year's winner was Andres Fresno Rodriguez of the University of Talca, Chile! | | |
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Save the date 2nd Global Collaboration on Traumatic Stress Conference New Delhi 13-14 Feb 2025 Venue: Jamia Millia Islamia University New Delhi, India #GCTS2025 Find out more here |
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The Normandy Landings Revisited: 80 Years of Traumatic Stress Studies May 22-24 2024, Caen, France Join us in France for a very exciting program! The conference organizers are accepting abstract submissions for poster presentations Find the details here |
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IC-CROSS Assessing intergenerational continuity of trauma and child maltreatment across cultures Rachel Langevin, project leader of IC-CROSS, obtained funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to organise an outreach activity on the topic of cross-cultural considerations in the intergenerational continuity of maltreatment. The event, involving members of IC-CROSS and the Quebec child protection sector, is open to all for attendance. It will be hosted in Montreal, Canada in spring 2025 with remote attendance possibilities. Check out the events page for more details soon. |
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Post Doc and Phd position at University of Zurich At the University of Zurich, Switzerland, there is a vacancy for a Post Doc and Phd student at the new department of Clinical Intervention and Global Mental Health.
A large-scale longitudinal study using experience sampling method (ESM) to examine changes in PTSD and grief symptoms over time will be conducted. Please keep on eye on this page for more information soon, or contact Clare Killikelly (see also grief projects). |
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ESTSS This year marks the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings. In honour of this momentous occasion, ESTSS is proud to be a partner in an international scientific event on traumatic stress that will be held in Caen (Normandy, France) from May 22 to May 24, 2024. The event will bring together researchers from over 15 countries, including prominent scientists from the ESTSS network. The call for poster abstracts is open now.
CPA-TSS: Featured Talks with a Focus on Diversity This year's annual convention of the Canadian Psychological Association will be in our National Capital, Ottawa (Ontario), from June 21 to June 23. At the Traumatic-Stress section, we will host invited presentations from our past year award winners, Drs. Monnica T. Williams and Jude Mary Cénat with a specific focus on diversity issues in trauma. Please join us! For more information and to register, follow this link. Activities of JSTSS after the great earthquake On January 1, 2024, a large-scale earthquake occurred in the Noto Peninsula and Hokuriku region. Although the damage caused by this earthquake will become clearer in the future, much damage has already been reported. JSTSS has created an information page in response to this disaster. Related papers in academic journals are also published in Japanese. For details, please visit the JSTSS website (English). Annual meeting of the DeGPT was held in Vienna, Austria The annual meeting of the DeGPT took place in Vienna, Austria, from February 22nd to 24th, 2024 under the title “Individualized Traumatherapy”. Over 500 participants took part in workshops, symposia, and discussions on site, making it a great success.
The annual focus topic of the DeGPT is complex PTSD and we have already held online training courses on this topic and are planning more with experts from science and practice. So stay tuned for further content, which as always can be found on the DeGPT website. From ACET, Chile Information on ACET VII International Trauma Conferences in Santiago on 4-5 October 2024, with workshops 2-3 October can be found here.
A New President Elected for KSTSS
On November 24, 2023, during the annual meeting of KSTSS, a new president was elected: Dr. Yun-Kyeung Choi from the Department of Psychology at Keimyung University.dd your text here. A New Year for ASTSS ASTSS has elected a new Management Board in December 2023. Over the last two years, ASTSS has worked on modernising its foundational constitution, which will shortly be put to the membership. A key strategic direction has also been increasing our collaboration and inclusion as a society.
ASTSS has been active in running a series of webinars and online forums for our members, including student members. Additionally, efforts have been made to establish new Special Interest Groups focused on areas such as allied health. We’re especially excited to work towards the next Australasian Conference of Traumatic Stress (ACOTS), 7-9th November, in Melbourne in partnership with Phoenix Australia under the theme of 'Moving Through Trauma'.
We are pleased to see the continued growth in the membership of ASTSS and note especially the interest in traumatic stress from a range of new allied health sectors. In addition to broadening our base, ASTSS has and will continue to focus on finding ways to incorporate the lived experience and peer worker perspectives across all levels of ASTSS activities. |
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New GCTS publications Bi, Y., Cao, C., Fang, R., Wang, N., Liu, P., Luo, S., Grace, E., & Wang, L. (2024). A latent class analysis of dissociative PTSD subtype among Chinese adolescents following the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown. Journal of Affective Disorders, 349. 596-603. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2023.12.078 Guo, J., Orgeta, V., Olivé, I., Hoff, E., Huntley, J., Olff, M., & Sobczak, S. (2024). Biomarkers associated with cognitive impairment in post-traumatic stress disorder: A systematic review of current evidence. Ageing Research Reviews, 102198. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.arr.2024.102198 Grace, E., Rogers, R., Usher, R., Rivera, I.M., Elbakry, H., Sotilleo, S., Doe, R., Toribio, M., Coreas, N., & Olff, M. (2023). Psychometric Properties of the Global Psychotrauma Screen in the United States. Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine, 11,1, 2266215, doi.org/10.1080/21642850.2023.2266215 . Koutsopoulou, I., Grace, E., Gkintoni, E., & Olff, M. (2024). Validation of the Global Psychotrauma Screen for Adolescents in Greece. European Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 100384. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejtd.2024.100384 Krijnen, L. J. G., van Eldik, W. M., Mooren, T. T. M., van Rooijen, B., Boelen, P. A., van Baar, A. L., ... & Egberts, M. R. (2023). Factors associated with mental health of young children during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands. Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health, 17(1), 136. Lenferink, L. I. M., van Dijk, I., Eisma, M. C., Eklund, R., Boelen, P. A., & Sveen, J. (2023). Psychometric evaluation of the Swedish Traumatic Grief Inventory Self-Report Plus (TGI-SR+) in bereaved parents. Clinical psychology & psychotherapy. https://doi.org/10.1002/cpp.2922 Seçinti, D. D., Albayrak, Z. S., Vasileva, M., & De Young, A. C. (2023). Mental Health Difficulties of Turkish Healthcare Workers and Non-Healthcare Workers and Their Young Children During Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic. Alpha Psychiatry, 24(4), 153. Sobczak, S., van Kordenoordt, M., Uiterwijk, R., Cook, J. M., Havermans, D. C. D., Vossen, L., Ramakers, I., Olff, M., & van Alphen, S. P. J. (2024). Challenges in diagnosing Posttraumatic stress disorder in dementia: A case report. Psychiatry Research Case Reports, 3(1), 100207. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psycr.2024.100207
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