Maria Louison Vang

• BSc MSc PhD Psychology
• Professor (Associate) at University of Southern Denmark

Research has highlighted an increased risk of posttraumatic stress symptoms among legal professionals, but a screening tool for indirect trauma exposure is lacking to support research and practice. This study aims to develop and validate a measure of indirect trauma exposure among prosecutors. Two nationwide surveys were conducted among Danish pros...

Background: Little peer-reviewed research has been done on trauma exposure, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Complex PTSD (CPTSD) prevalence among Greenlandic children and adolescents. There is a need for a validated Greenlandic version of the International Trauma Questionnaire – Child and Adolescent version (ITQ-CA) to assess symptoms of...

Background Previous research has indicated high levels of PTSD among people with substance use disorders (SUD), necessitating an exploration of trauma profiles in this population. This study aims to assess the prevalence of ICD-11 PTSD and study demographic, trauma-related, and substance-use related factors among individuals in SUD treatment in Den...

Introduction Social support is considered an important factor in prevention of mental illness. However, little is known about the association between ambulance personnel’s use of multiple types of social support and post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS). This study aims to assess if number of used social support types predicts PTSS for ambulance pe...

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is recognized as a debilitating psychiatric disorder affecting populations worldwide. This has inspired many countries to estimate the national prevalence rates of PTSD in Europe and beyond. At present, there are no published representative studies that have assessed the occurrence of trauma exposure and PTSD in...

Objective Self-perceived interpersonal problems can challenge one’s access to the work market, making it harder to attain and keep a job while adding to the distress of being outside of the labor market. Methods In this study, we compared the self-perceived interpersonal problems among long-term unemployed individuals taking part in vocational reh...

Danish prosecutors report exposure to negative acts from professional counterparts in courtrooms, which is associated with an increased risk of burnout. However, knowledge of the characteristics of these acts is limited. Based on existing theoretical frameworks, this study aims to characterize these negative acts. A nation-wide survey of Danish pro...

Poster presented April 12th at the 2024 Research Seminar hosted by Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Region Zealand, Denmark.

Background Collaboration between clinical practice and research is often warranted. Extended periods of collaboration integrating research and practice is however rare. This article is about a series of joint research projects through the course of 8 years involving the Danish Center of Psychotraumatology and five regional centres dedicated to comb...

Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD) is included in ICD-11 and DSM-5-TR and includes a requirement of cultural deviance. This study examined endorsement rates and factors associated with endorsement of this criterion among Danish bereaved spouses (n = 425) and their adult children (n = 159) four years post-loss. In total, 7.5% (n = 44) participants endor...

Objective: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has long been recognized as a debilitating psychiatric disorder. The definition of Criterion A has been a topic of controversy, and Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) and International Classification of Diseases, 11th version have opted for a narrow and a broa...

Background: Despite the long-standing ongoing war in Ukraine, information regarding war-related negative mental health outcomes in children is limited. A nationwide sample of parents in Ukraine was surveyed to assess posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms in their children and to identify risk factors associated with child PTSD status. Metho...

Introduction: Symptoms of prolonged grief disorder (PGD), depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) often emerge concurrently in bereavement. The understanding of temporal relationships between these syndromes in a general bereaved population is limited. This study aims to investigate temporal relationships between these syndromes from 2...

International research has documented that prosecutors and lawyers are at increased risk of reporting symptoms of internalizing mental health disorders. Much existing research is based on small convenience samples and no studies have hitherto been conducted among Danish prosecutors. EU estimates indicate that Denmark reports among the highest numbe...

The ongoing war in Ukraine is expected to negatively impact the mental health of the country’s population. This study aims to provide a preliminary estimate of the degree of change in the mental health problems of Ukrainian children following Russia’s invasion in February 2022, and to identify the sociodemographic and war-related risk factors assoc...

The symptom structure of ICD‐11 posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and complex PTSD (CPTSD) and the validity of the International Trauma Questionnaire (ITQ) are yet to be tested among civilians in an active war zone. The present investigation examined the factor structure of the ITQ, the internal consistency of observed scores, and their associat...

Ambulance workers frequently experience potentially traumatizing events and have an estimated PTSD-prevalence of 11 % (Petrie et al., 2018). Social support is considered an important preventive factor of PTSD. Existing prospective studies that include ambulance workers show no or small effect of social support following critical events (Elklit & G...

Background: Although it is well-established that people can experience multiple traumatic events, there are few studies examining the co-occurrence of such experiences in non-Western nations. The current study sought to examine the occurrence of multiple potentially traumatic experiences (PTEs) and their associations with posttraumatic stress diso...

Background: International research has established that children and adolescents are at risk for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and complex PTSD (CPTSD) as defined by the WHO ICD-11. There is a need for a Danish language version of the International Trauma Questionnaire – Child and Adolescent (ITQ-CA) to assess symptoms of PTSD and CPTSD. Obj...

Background: High rates of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have been documented in war-affected populations. The prevalence of Complex PTSD (CPTSD) has never been assessed in an active war zone. Here, we provide initial data on war-related experiences, and prevalence rates of ICD-11 PTSD and CPTSD in a large sample of adults in Ukraine during...

Background: The ICD-11 post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and complex PTSD diagnoses have been examined in several studies using the International Trauma Questionnaire (ITQ). The cross-cultural validity of the ITQ has not previously been studied using item responses theory methods focused on the issue of equal item functioning and thus comparabi...

A nationwide survey of 2,004 adult Ukrainian parents who reported on their experiences of the war, how their own mental health has changed since the invasion in February 2022, and how the mental health of their children has changed. These data were collected between July and September 2022.

Background: It is expected that the ongoing war in Ukraine will have a considerable negative impact on the mental health of the country’s population. This study aims to provide a preliminary estimate of the degree of change in the mental health problems of Ukrainian children following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and identify the...

Introduction: Critical incidents in ambulance work are not easily compared to other risk occupations. Understanding types of incidents that can be considered critical in operational ambulance work is important to prevent work-related post-traumatic stress (PTS). Aim: This study aimed to develop a scale of critical incidents in ambulance work and...

Background: There is currently limited information on how Russia’s war on Ukraine has affected the mental health of people living in Ukraine. Understanding the mental health effects of the war, and identifying who has been worst affected, is critical to informing mental health responses. A nationwide sample of parents in Ukraine were surveyed to (1...

Background: High rates of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have been documented in war-affected populations. The prevalence of CPTSD has never been assessed in an active war zone. Here, we provide initial data on war-related experiences, and estimated prevalence rates of ICD-11 PTSD and Complex PTSD (CPTSD) in the general adult population of Uk...

Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD) is a newly recognized mental disorder in ICD-11 and DSM-5-TR. Several studies using exploratory factor analysis have found a unidimensional structure of the Prolonged Grief-13 (PG-13) measure of PGD. The recently published ICD-11 proposal proposes a distinction between two clusters of symptoms: Separation distress sym...

This study examined the effect of workplace sexual harassment on posttraumatic stress (PTSD) symptoms while also examining the effect of harassment frequency, harassment source, and workplace social capital. The sample consisted of 3153 Danish social educators (females 79.3%) responding to the International Trauma Questionnaire (ITQ) and the Copenh...

Background Tonic Immobility (TI) is a peri-traumatic response that appear to play a vital role in the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). TI is characterized by a strong motoric inhibition, a paralysis of movement, thought, emotion, and vocalization, and has primarily been studied in association with rape and childhood sexual assau...

Secondary traumatization (ST) is a topical area among trauma‐exposed employees, where many are at risk of occupational mental health problems due to their work with trauma survivors. Challenges related to the accurate operationalization of ST symptoms persist, and there is no valid method for identifying employees at risk of clinically significant...

Aims To assess the factorial validity and internal reliability of the International Trauma Questionnaire (ITQ) among a treatment-seeking sample of survivors of sexual violence in Ireland. In addition, to assess the diagnostic rate of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) among the samples. Methods...

Little is known about moderating factors associated with indirect exposure to child abuse cases and the development of symptoms of secondary traumatization. This study tested the relationship between personal therapy and supervision on secondary traumatization and burnout and whether these factors moderate the effect of personal trauma history and...

Self-perceived interpersonal problems are of central concern for researchers and individuals; they are at the basis of psychopathology and cause for subjective distress. In this study, we examine whether a group-based rehabilitation program in nature may reduce self-perceived interpersonal problems in a heterogeneous group of men declining particip...

Background: Approximately 4.1% of Danish children experience child abuse (CA) and clinical experience suggests that the number of cases of physical abuse of children are on the rise during the COVID-19 lockdown. In Denmark, the Nordic Barnahus model was implemented to support cross-sectional collaboration in cases of suspected child abuse. The Dani...

Background: The 11th version of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) revised the diagnosis of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and introduced Complex PTSD as a sibling disorder to PTSD. As the Danish Health Authorities will implement the ICD-11 in 2022, it is more relevant than ever to introduce a measure that enables the ident...

Background: Child-protection workers are at elevated risk for secondary traumatization. However, research in the area of secondary traumatization has been hampered by two major obstacles: the use of measures that have unclear or inadequate psychometric properties and equivocal findings on the degree of associated functional impairment. Objective: T...

It has been demonstrated that working with trauma-exposed children increases the risk for developing secondary traumatisation (ST) and burnout (BO). High correlations between ST and BO have been reported, suggesting an empirical overlap between the constructs. The purpose of the present review was to synthesise research investigating covariates of...

Traumatic event exposure has been associated with negative psychological outcomes. There is, however, a dearth of research on revictimization. The current study examined patterns of lifetime interpersonal victimization based on six types of childhood maltreatment, physical and sexual assault, and assault with a weapon during adulthood via latent cl...

Background: Child-protection workers are at elevated risk for secondary traumatisation. However, research in the area of secondary traumatisation has been hampered by two major obstacles: the use of measures that have unclear or inadequate psychometric properties and equivocal findings on the degree of associated functional impairment. Objective:...

Introduction: The present study observes symptom development during an adapted version of the group-based intervention program ‘STEPS’ for adolescent survivors of sexual assault. The program was translated from Dutch to Danish and expanded to adults in addition to adolescents as well as to an individual intervention in addition to a group-based int...

Introduction: The WHO has proposed posttraumatic stress (PTSD) and Complex PTSD (CPTSD) as trauma-related ‘sibling’-disorders in ICD-11. The proposal has received support from research among clinical and community samples alike but only few studies have tested the validity of these disorders in a sample of refugees using the International Trauma Qu...

It has been demonstrated that working with trauma-exposed children increases the risk for developing secondary traumatisation (ST) and burnout (BO). High correlations between ST and BO have been reported, suggesting an empirical overlap between the constructs. The purpose of the present review was to synthesise research investigating covariates of...

Background: Co-occurrence of psychosis and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms has been demonstrated, but the ICD-11 marks a significant divergence in the formulation of PTSD with a focus on the core symptoms and the addition of complex PTSD (CPTSD). Objective: To evaluate the distribution of psychosis and traumatic stress symptoms using...

Background: Working with survivors of child-abuse increases the risk for burnout and secondary traumatisation. Theories on the development of these syndromes commonly emphasise organisational factors and operational factors, such as indirect exposure to client trauma, respectively. While evidence also supports a relationship between operational fac...

Background: Theoretical accounts and empirical evidence have underlined the commonalities in phenomenology and aetiology of posttraumatic symptomatology and symptoms of psychosis (Morrison, Frame & Larkin, 2003; Shevlin et al., 2011), but investigation of this relationship under the ICD-11 conceptualization of trauma-related disorders is lacking. O...

Background: Adjustment disorder has been included alongside PTSD and CPTSD in ICD-11 in the category of trauma- and stressor-related disorders, reflecting a continuum of severity in stressor-related reactions (Stein, Rouillon & Maercker, 2018). Objective: The objective of the present study is to determine the latent structure and degree of distinc...

Although evidence is accumulating for the conceptual validity of the ICD‐11 proposal for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and complex PTSD (CPTSD), our understanding of the specificity of trauma‐related predictors is still evolving. Specifically, studies utilizing advanced statistical methods to model the association between trauma exposure and...

Objective: The objective of the current study was to investigate the contemporary concept of patient-centeredness compared to the original notion of patient-centeredness in practice and politics. Methods: This is accomplished through a concept-analysis of patient-centeredness on the basis of the original publications by Michael and Enid Balint as w...

Studies have reported gender differences in academic self-efficacy. However, how and if academic self-efficacy questionnaires are gender-biased has not been psychometrically investigated. The psychometric properties of a general version of The Physics Self-Efficacy Questionnaire – the General Academic Self-Efficacy Scale (GASE) – were analyzed usin...

Introduction Child-abuse and neglect are associated with increased risk of adult PTSD and dissociation. Recent research suggests that dissociation mediates the relationship between child maltreatmentand PTSD, however, there is a lack of clarity regarding the mediating role of dissociation for different types of child abuse. Objective The aim of th...

In this paper we present a description of a new, Horizon2020, Marie Curie Sklodowska Action funded, research and training program called CONTEXT, or the ‘COllaborative Network for Training and EXcellence in psychoTraumatology’. The three objectives of the program are put forward, each of which refers to a key component of the CONTEXT program. First...

Background: Becoming a parent is viewed as one of the most important transitions in one’s life. However, a history of childhood maltreatment may affect the adjustment to parenthood. Objective: The objective of this review was to synthesize the current evidence base to further our understanding of prospective and new parents’ experiences in the tran...

Objective: The fear avoidance model has served as a popular, heuristic model in explaining the transition from acute to chronic pain. In addition, the significance of pain-related acceptance in chronic pain development and adjustment is underlined in a vast number of empirical studies. The objective of the current preliminary study was to investig...

Background: Patient-centeredness is implemented in Western health-care systems to improve decision-making and patient outcomes. However, the contemporary notion of patient-centeredness has undergone considerable change since Michael and Enid Balint’s original formulation of the concept in the 1960’ies. This project examined the differences between...

Self-efficacy is an important and much used construct in psychology and social science studies. The validity of the measurements used is not always sufficiently evaluated. The aim was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Danish translation of the self-efficacy subscale of The Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ-SE) withi...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the predictive validity of a two-step admissions procedure that included a cognitive ability test followed by multiple mini-interviews (MMIs) used to assess non-cognitive skills, compared to grade-based admissions relative to subsequent drop-out rates and academic achievement after one and two years of study. T...

An estimated 33.000 children every year witness domestic violence in Denmark. However, only 2.000 children take residence or visit a shelter every year, and little is known about the coping strategies developed by these children. This report is based on a content-analysis of journal-notes from therapy-sessions with a representative sample of 215 ch...