Traumatic symptomatology characteristics of adult children of alcoholics.

Traumatic experience symptomatology, resiliency factors, and stress among young adults who had experienced alcoholism within their family of origin were assessed in comparison to adults who as children experienced traumatic life events other than alcoholism and those who indicated neither problem (parental alcoholism or traumatic life event) during their childhood. These three groups were compared on self-report measures of stress, resiliency, depressive symptomatology, and trauma symptoms. Results indicated adult children of alcoholics (ACOA) had more self-reported stress, more difficulty initiating the use of mediating factors in response to life events, and more symptoms of personal dysfunction than the control group. Results suggest ACOAs may develop less effective stress management strategies and present more clinically at-risk patterns of responses than their counterparts.