Notre objectif principal était d’examiner la répartition des événements traumatogènes auprès d’un échantillon de jeunes adultes ainsi que d’étudier leurs liens avec les conduites addictives, les symptômes dépressifs et certains troubles anxieux.

Un échantillon de 735 participants, âgés de 18 à 35 ans (M=22,6 ; DS=4) a répondu à un questionnaire diffusé sur Internet. Des sous-groupes ont été définis en fonction du type d’événements et de l’âge au moment des événements afin d’identifier les groupes à risque.

Plus de 90 des répondants avaient vécu au moins un événement traumatogène au cours de leur vie et 20 % d’entre eux présentaient un état de stress post-traumatique possible. Il y avait une corrélation importante entre événements traumatogènes, symptômes anxieux et dépressifs, et comportements addictifs liés au sexe, au travail, au sport et aux relations.

Nos résultats mettent en avant des liens significatifs entre les événements traumatogènes et différentes manifestations symptomatiques. Ces résultats suggèrent notamment l’importance de mettre en place des actions de prévention spécifiques en fonction de l’âge et particulièrement auprès des adolescents et pré-adolescents qui semblent les plus touchés par les agressions physiques et sexuelles.

In France, the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder is estimated around 3,9 %, yet very few studies have been conducted on potentially traumatic events in French samples, in particular in a population of young adults. Moreover, the severity of the act (violence and repetition) and the age of the victim seem to be aggravating factors in the development of psychiatric symptoms. Our main objective was to examine the distribution of potentially traumatic events in a non-clinical sample of young adults and to study their relationships between traumatic events, addictive behaviors, and depressive and anxiety symptoms. We also paid particular attention to the impact of their age at the time of the events and the repetition of these events.

A sample of 735 participants, aged from 18 to 35 years (M=22.6; SD=4) completed a questionnaire on the Internet. Several scales have been used including the Trauma History Questionnaire, the Impact of Event Scale-Revised, the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, the Penn State Worry Questionnaire, and the Shorter Promis Questionnaire for assessing addictive behaviors. Sub-groups, according to the age of the person at the time of the first potentially traumatic event and the type of the event, were created in order to identify risk groups.

Our results showed that more than 90 % of the sample reported at least one potentially traumatic event while approximately 60 % reported repeated traumatic events. There were 21 % to significantly suffer from post-traumatic stress symptoms, 29 % from generalized anxiety symptoms and 37 % from depressive symptoms. The higher risk periods for being the victim of sexual or physical assaults were preadolescence and adolescence. Among addictive disorders, substances, tobacco and alcohol had higher mean scores; among behaviors, it was bulimia, work and shopping. Besides these, compulsive helps had scores around twice higher than the other relationships. There was a correlation between traumatic events and anxiety disorders, depressive symptoms, and addictive behavior related to sex, work, sport, and relationship. Multiple regression analysis revealed that depressive symptomatology was highly explained by the presence of some addictive behaviors while generalized anxiety and post-traumatic stress symptoms were less explained by these behaviors.

Our study showed that potentially traumatic events appear more frequently than on other studies. Moreover, these events were associated with numerous psychiatric symptoms, including multiple addictive behaviors. Those events and post-traumatic stress symptoms had a more sizable presence, compared to results in previous studies. Descriptive analysis underlined the vulnerability of children confronted with repeated traumatic events. These results suggest the importance of setting specific preventive actions up, according to age, in particular with adolescents and pre-adolescents, who seem to be the most affected by physical and sexual aggressions.