{"doi":"10.1016/j.comppsych.2025.152590","title":"Parent-child mental health in Ukraine in relation to war trauma and drone attacks","abstract":"We aimed to address the knowledge gap regarding mental health in Ukrainian children and parents one year after Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion including associations with exposure to drone attacks. A cross-sectional, quota-sampled survey was conducted among parents of children aged 3–17 in Ukraine one year after the invasion ( n = 858). Participants completed self-reported screening measures of the Pediatric Symptom Checklist-17, Child and Adolescent Trauma Screen–Caregiver, Patient Health Questionnaire-9, Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7, the International Trauma Questionnaire, and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) 3-Item Loneliness Scale. We analyzed scores in relation to drone attack exposure using logistic regression. Many children aged 3–6 years had scores suggestive of ADHD (24.2 %), conduct disorder (20.5 %), and anxiety/mood disorder (12.1 %). Results were similar among children aged 7–17 (anxiety/mood disorder: 24.1 %, conduct disorder: 14.5 %, and ADHD: 14 %). Of the 45.0 % of children aged 3–6 and 57.0 % aged 7–17 exposed to post-invasion trauma, 21.8 % and 17.6 % had clinically relevant levels of PTSD symptoms, respectively. Parental symptoms met screening criteria for depressive disorder in 46.7 % and for anxiety disorder in 24.2 %. All parents reported post-invasion trauma, with 24.5 % screening positive for PTSD. Child mental health disorder odds increased with parental PTSD (OR 1.85, 95 %CI 1.29–2.72) and symptoms meeting screening criteria for depressive disorder (OR 1.99, 95 %CI 1.15–2.56). The odds of children aged 7–17 having clinically relevant levels of PTSD symptoms increased with parental symptoms screening positive for depressive disorder (OR 6.0, 95 %CI 2.0–18.3), anxiety disorder (OR 3.48, 95 %CI 1.76–6.8), and PTSD (OR 3.23, 95 % 1.67–6.2). Parents had a higher prevalence of screening positive for PTSD in high-intensity drone attack regions (28.9 %) than low- and moderate-intensity regions (25.0 % and 20.5 %, respectively, p = 0.04). The high prevalence of children and parents in Ukraine with symptoms screening positive for mental disorders indicates an urgent need for services for school-age children and parents in this war-affected region. High-intensity drone attacks increase the risk of parents screening positive for PTSD. • Identified significantly higher PTSD rates among parents in high-intensity drone attack regions compared to broader adult populations in Ukraine. • Parental PTSD, depression, and loneliness strongly predict mental health disorders in children aged 7–17. • Highlights the interconnected mental health impact of war within family units • Highlights the necessity for systematic research on drone warfare's mental health effects on civilian populations • Advocates for cessation of drone attacks on civilians and focused mental health interventions for those exposed to high-intensity trauma.","journal":"Comprehensive Psychiatry","year":2025,"id":518013,"datarank":0.3596842909197557,"base_score":2.3978952727983707,"endowment":2.3978952727983707,"self_citation_contribution":0.3596842909197557,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.3596842909197557,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":10,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.8801,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1385444,"name":"Iftikhar Sikder","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1384973,"name":"Shanshan Wang","orcid":"0000-0001-8718-1905","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":228378,"name":"Emily S. Barrett","orcid":"0000-0001-9463-524X","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":736325,"name":"Nancy Fiedler","orcid":"0000-0001-8606-4352","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1385445,"name":"Miraj Ahmad","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":750184,"name":"Uyen‐Sa Nguyen","orcid":"0000-0003-2715-9073","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1214898,"name":"Dmytro Martsenkovskyi","orcid":"0000-0002-6030-2698","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1385446,"name":"Irina Holovanova","orcid":null,"position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1385447,"name":"Madelyn Hsiao‐Rei Hicks","orcid":null,"position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1384974,"name":"Ubydul Haque","orcid":"0000-0002-7413-1017","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1385443,"name":"Amna Naeem","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":25,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:49:04.756302Z","pmid":"40090214","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}