Miranda Olff

Academisch Medisch Centrum Universiteit van Amsterdam | AMC · Department of Psychiatry

COVID-19 caused a great burden on the healthcare system and led to lockdown measures across the globe. These measures are likely to influence crime rates, but a comprehensive overview on the impact of COVID-19 on crime rates is lacking. The aim of the current study was to systematically review evidence on the impact of COVID-19 measures on crime ra...

Background: The International Trauma Questionnaire (ITQ) is a recent self-report measure to assess the severity and probable posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and complex PTSD (CPTSD) as defined by the 11th revision of the International Classification of Diseases. Few studies have examined the psychometric properties of full and short ITQ versio...

Background Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a complex and heterogeneous mental health condition that can develop after exposure to a traumatic event. Clinical trials have used alternative pharmacological agents to treat PTSD, but their associated neural correlates remain unclear. The present systematic review aims to summarize the changes in...

Background Prior research assessing the psychometric properties of the Global Psychotrauma Screen provided support for its internal consistency reliability, construct validity, convergent validity, and divergent validity in several international samples, but not specifically in a U.S. subsample. Objective The purpose of this study was to assess ps...

To treat the impact of trauma, most current evidence supports the use of trauma-focused psychotherapy as the first line approach. However, millions of individuals exposed to trauma worldwide seek Complementary and Integrative Health (CIH) therapies in hopes of achieving wellness above and beyond reducing symptoms. But what is the evidence for CIH i...

People commonly face adverse circumstances throughout life, which increases risk for psychiatric disorders, such as anxiety, depression, psychosis, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Adversities may occur during different periods in life. Especially adversity during early periods has been suggested to put individuals at risk for adverse ment...

Introduction: Helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) personnel provide on-scene trauma care to patients with high mortality risk. The HEMS work context is characterized by an exceptionally high exposure to critical incidents, emotionally demanding patient encounters, and having to perform under pressure with limited resources. The aim of this...

Introduction: International psychosocial support guidelines reflect consensus on support principles and interventions. However, no consensus exists on what recipients consider important elements of service delivery. Within two contexts – after a potentially traumatic event (PTE) and people with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA)–the aims were to contrib...

Background: Exposure to adversity in utero is thought to increase susceptibility to develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following later life trauma, due to neurobiological programming effects during critical developmental periods. It remains unknown whether effects of prenatal adversity on PTSD susceptibility are modulated by genetic varia...

Background: Timely and effective interventions can alleviate or prevent the development of clinical symptomatology in trauma-exposed individuals. However, due to limited access to these interventions, and/or stigma around accessing mental health services, there is an unmet need. Internet-and mobile-based interventions may help to address this need....

We investigated whether the impact of potentially traumatic events (PTEs) on trauma-related symptoms changes across the transitional adult lifespan (i.e., 16-100 years old) and if this association differs for self-reported COVID-19-related PTEs compared to other PTEs. A web-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 7,034 participants from 88...

Purpose of review: Women are twice as likely to develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) compared to men after a traumatic experience. The purpose of this mini review was to explore recent research on biological contributors to this sex difference. Recent findings: We identified 51 studies published since 2019. Studies found that beyond the...

BACKGROUND: Tonic immobility (TI) is a reflexive, involuntary response that causes motor inhibition, vocal suppression, and analgesia. TI is elicited by extreme fear and perception of entrapment in a life-threatening situation. Research suggests that TI is a frequent peritraumatic response and may be related to subsequent posttraumatic stress disor...

Moral injury is an emerging concept that captures the psychosocial consequences of involvement in and exposure to morally transgressive events. In the past decade, research on moral injury has grown exponentially. In this special collection we review papers on moral injury published in the European Journal of Psychotraumatology from its inception u...

Background: Helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) personnel provide on-scene trauma care to patients with high mortality risk. Work in the HEMS setting is characterized by frequent exposure to critical incidents and other stressors. The aim of this study was to further our understanding of the factors underlying HEMS personnel wellbeing to...

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with cognitive dysfunctions and is an independent risk factor for dementia. A recent study has found the prevalence of PTSD in people with dementia is 4.7%-7.8%. However, little is known about the effectiveness of PTSD treatment for people with dementia. The primary aim of the current study is to...

Background Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a complex and heterogeneous mental health condition that can develop after exposure to a traumatic event. Clinical trials have used new pharmacological agents to treat PTSD, but their associated neural correlates remain unclear. The present systematic review aims to summarise the changes in brain f...

2022 was a year of crises, not just one but multiple intersecting crises that caused traumatic stress in billions of people worldwide. COVID-19 is still not over. New wars have started, and the climate change impact is bigger than ever. Will the Anthropocene be an era of continued crises? This past year the European Journal of Psychotraumatology (E...

Background Potentially traumatic events may lead to the development of a wide range of adverse psychological responses, including symptoms of anxiety, depression, and (complex) posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Despite the high prevalence of potentially traumatic events in Iran, there is no population data nor evidence-based instrument to scree...

Providing efficient psychosocial support for survivors of sexual assault is of critical societal importance. Around the globe, technology-based solutions (eHealth) are increasingly being used to accomplish this task, especially following COVID-19. Despite increased importance and reliance on eHealth for sexual assault, minimal efforts have been mad...

Background: Recent years have shown an increased application of prospective trajectory-oriented approaches to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Although women are generally considered at increased PTSD risk, sex and gender differences in PTSD symptom trajectories have not yet been extensively studied. Objective: To perform an in-depth invest...

A recent scandal in the Netherlands painfully underscored that sexual harassment and abuse are unfortunately still happening around the world, even after decades of advocacy on this issue and five years of #MeToo. To make progress in prevention and treatment we argue that we should address sexual violence from a public health perspective. Fruthermo...

Background Psychological resilience is an important factor in coping with Potentially Traumatic Events (PTEs) and might mitigate the development of trauma-related disorders. Due to the high risk of natural disasters, criminal activity, and transportation accidents among the Indonesian population, it is critical to assess psychological resilience as...

Background: Current clinical assessments of Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) rely solely on subjective symptoms and experiences reported by the patient, rather than objective biomarkers of the illness. Recent advances in data-driven computational approaches have been helpful in devising tools to objectively diagnose psychiatric disorders. Here...

Background Young adults’ drinking habits often exceed low-risk drinking guidelines. As young adults show increased access, use, and interest in personalized content related to physical and mental well-being, mobile applications might be a suitable tool to reach this target group. This study investigates the effectiveness of “Boozebuster”, a self-gu...

Childhood maltreatment (CM) is thought to be associated with altered responses to socialstimuli and interpersonal signals. Correspondingly, first studies found that CM is linked tolarger comfortable interpersonal distance (CID). However, studies were limited in statisticalpower and only examined individuals from the European region. Moreover, littl...

Racial discrimination (RD) is unfair treatment of individuals based on race or ethnicity. It is a pervasive and increasing phenomenon in the lives of many individuals with deleterious effects on mental health. Research implicates RD in diminished well-being, lower life satisfaction and self-esteem, and mental health disorders. Furthermore, there ha...

Background The Resilience Evaluation Scale (RES) is a novel and freely available measure of psychological resilience (factored into self-confidence and self-efficacy). To date, psychometric properties were evaluated in Dutch and American samples, but not yet in a Chinese sample. Objective We aimed to validate the RES in a Chinese sample by examini...

Sexually assaulted women represent a particularly high-risk group for developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Potentially traumatic events (PTEs) and peritraumatic dissociation (PD) are known risk factors for PTSD. However, little is known about how previous trauma affects PD and how this relationship affects PTSD. We aimed to investigate...

Background The cerebellum critically contributes to higher-order cognitive and emotional functions such fear learning and memory. Prior research on cerebellar volume in PTSD is scant and has neglected neuroanatomical subdivisions of the cerebellum that differentially map on to motor, cognitive, and affective functions. Methods We quantified cerebe...

Background: The high prevalence of trauma exposure and consequent post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is well documented in low- and middle-income countries, and most individuals with PTSD have limited access to treatment in these settings. Freely available internet-based interventions, such as PTSD Coach (web-based and mobile application), can h...

A number of studies of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) report thinner cerebral cortical gyri using gyrus-based analysis or thinner foci within the gyri using vertex-based analysis. However, the locations of these findings are inconsistent across studies, and the spatial transformations required during vertex-based analysis may affect the focal...

People commonly face adverse circumstances throughout life, which increases risk for psychiatric disorders, such as anxiety, depression, psychosis and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Adversities may occur during different periods in life. Especially adversity during early periods has been suggested to put individuals at risk for adverse menta...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare professionals are exposed to extreme hazards and workplace stressors. Social media postings by physicians and nurses related to COVID-19 from January 21st to June 1st 2020 were obtained from the Reddit website. Topic modeling via Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) using a machine-learning approach was perform...

Previous studies showed that textual information could be used to screen respondents for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In this study, we explored the feasibility of using language features extracted from short text descriptions respondents provided of stressful events to predict trauma-related symptoms assessed using the Global Psychotrauma...

Results of neuroimaging datasets aggregated from multiple sites may be biased by site-specific profiles in participants’ demographic and clinical characteristics, as well as MRI acquisition protocols and scanning platforms. We compared the impact of four different harmonization methods on results obtained from analyses of cortical thickness data: (...

Devastating and persisting traumatic memories are a central symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Sleep problems are highly co-occurrent with PTSD and intertwined with its etiology. Notably, sleep hosts memory consolidation processes, supported by sleep spindles (11-16 Hz). Here we assess the hypothesis that intrusive memory symptoms in...

Cognitive and behavioral aspects may mask posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in people with dementia. PTSD severely lowers quality of life in people with dementia. Proper recognition of PTSD is essential to ensure adequate treatment. However, a valid diagnostic tool for PTSD in dementia is lacking. A Delphi study was conducted among 20 Dutch and...

Telomeres are short tandem repeats of “TTAGGG” that protect the chromosome ends from deterioration or fusion of chromosomes. Their repeat length shortens with cell division acting as a biomarker of cellular aging. Traumatic stress events during adulthood or childhood have been associated with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and short leukocyte...

Background A one-stop shop for disaster response services provides a central location for information and advice in an accessible way. Yet little is known about its organization and outcomes. After the MH17 airplane crash, the one-stop shop concept was realized through a digital environment called the Information and Referral Center (IRC). The aim...

Background Text mining and machine learning are increasingly used in mental health care practice and research, potentially saving time and effort in the diagnosis and monitoring of patients. Previous studies showed that mental disorders can be detected based on text, but they focused on screening for a single predefined disorder instead of multiple...

Childhood maltreatment (CM) is linked to impairments in various domains of social functioning. Here, we argue that it is critical to identify factors that underlie impaired social functioning as well as processes that mediate the beneficial health effects of positive relationships in individuals exposed to CM. Key research recommendations are prese...

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a prevalent disorder worldwide and often co‐occurs in dementia. Both have a major impact on disease burden and quality of life. PTSD may be difficult to recognize in dementia and a structured diagnostic method is lacking. In order to get insight into the clinical diagnostics of PTSD in dementia, this systemat...

Background Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is accompanied by disrupted cortical neuroanatomy. We investigated alteration in covariance of structural networks associated with PTSD in regions that demonstrate the case-control differences in cortical thickness (CT) and surface area (SA). Methods Neuroimaging and clinical data were aggregated fro...

A growing body of research demonstrates the association between neighborhood context and health. The underlying biological mechanisms of this association are not fully understood. We conducted a systematic review of studies that investigated the association between neighborhood context and telomere length (TL), a DNA-protein complex that shortens a...

Understanding the neurobiological and cognitive processes underlying the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and its specific symptoms may facilitate preventive intervention development. Severe traumatic stress and resulting biological stress system activations can alter contextual memory processes. This may provide a neurobiologica...

Background Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with markers of accelerated aging. Estimates of brain age, compared to chronological age, may clarify the effects of PTSD on the brain and may inform treatment approaches targeting the neurobiology of aging in the context of PTSD. Method Adult subjects (N = 2229; 56.2% male) aged 18–69...

This is a brief description of a protocol for a systematic scoping review. The scoping review will synthesize the literature pertaining to eHealth interventions targeting the psychosocial impacts of sexual assault.

In individuals with a history of child maltreatment (CM), impairments in many domains of social functioning are well-documented but poorly understood. We summarize evidence for the detrimental effects of CM on social functioning and present key research recommendations focused on: 1. Identifying alterations in specific inter- and intra- personal pr...

The human circadian system creates and maintains cellular and systemic rhythmicity essential for the temporal organization of physiological processes promoting homeostasis and environmental adaptation. Sleep disruption and loss of circadian rhythmicity fundamentally affects master homeostasic regulating systems at the crossroads of peripheral and c...

The potential mental health consequences of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic are widely acknowledged; however, limited research exists regarding the nature and patterns of stress responses to COVID-19-related potentially traumatic events (PTEs) and the convergence/divergence with responses to other (non-COVID-19-related) PTEs. Netwo...

Aims: This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of anxiety, depression and PTSD symptoms, and associated risk factors among a large-scale sample of adolescents from China after the pandemic and lockdown. Method: A total of 57,948 high school students took part in an online survey from July 13 to 29, 2020. The mental health outcomes included...

A growing number of studies have examined alterations in white matter organization in people with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) using diffusion MRI (dMRI), but the results have been mixed which may be partially due to relatively small sample sizes among studies. Altered structural connectivity may be both a neurobiological vulnerability for,...

Devastating and persisting traumatic memories are a central symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Sleep problems are highly co-occurrent with PTSD and intertwined with its etiology. Notably, sleep hosts memory consolidation processes, supported by sleep spindles (11-16 Hz). Here we assess the hypothesis that intrusive memory symptoms in...

High levels of stress at work may have serious consequences for employee functioning and mental health. By providing employees with an easily accessible instrument to regularly evaluate stressors and resources, employee self-monitoring and guidance to support can be accommodated. We evaluated an online self-monitoring tool Brief Assessment of Stres...

Background: The mental health impact of the COVID-19 crisis may differ from previously studied stressful events in terms of psychological reactions, specific risk factors, and symptom severity across geographic regions worldwide. Objective: To assess the impact of COVID-19 on a wide range of mental health symptoms, to identify relevant risk factors...

Background: Potentially traumatic stressors can lead to various transdiagnostic outcomes beyond PTSD alone but no brief screening tools exist for measuring posttraumatic responses in a transdiagnostic manner. Objective: Assess the psychometric characteristics of a new 22-item transdiagnostic screening measure, the Global Psychotrauma Screen (GPS)....

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a complex psychiatric condition that has generated much attention in the neuroimaging literature. A neurocircuitry model supporting fronto-limbic dysfunction as a major player in facilitating clinical symptoms of PTSD is well-characterized; however, recent literature suggests that network-based approaches may...

The mental health of healthcare workers (HCWs) is critical to their long-term well-being and future disaster preparedness. Goal 1 of this study was to identify rates of mental health problems experienced by HCWs. Goal 2 was to test a model of risk stemming from pandemic-related stressors and vulnerability factors. This cross-sectional study include...

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Background: The review of trauma screening tools for children and adolescents indicates a need for developmentally and linguistically appropriate, globally applicable, free, and easily accessible trauma screening instruments. Objective: The aim of this study is to adapt the Global Psychotrauma Screen (GPS) for children and adolescents in the United...

UNSTRUCTURED Most people who experience a potentially traumatic event (PTE) recover on their own. A small group of individuals develops psychological complaints, but this is often not detected in time or guidance to care is suboptimal. To identify these individuals and encourage them to seek help, a web-based self-help test called Mobile Insight in...

PurposeThis study represents the first assessment of the prevalence of trauma exposure, and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Complex PTSD (CPTSD), ever conducted in the general population of the Republic of Ireland. Additionally, prevalence of past-year mental health service use, comorbidity with major depression and generalized anxiety, an...

Introduction Cortical thickness (CT) and surface area (SA) are established biomarkers of brain pathology in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Structural covariance networks (SCN) constructed from CT and SA may represent developmental associations, or unique interactions between brain regions, possibly influenced by a common causal antecedent. T...

It is 10 years ago that the European Journal of Psychotraumatology (EJPT) was launched. This was celebrated with a one day symposium on 1 February 2021 with all EJPT’s editors presenting on the state of the art developments in the field of psychotraumatology. The European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ESTSS) is proud to have all these speak...

Post-traumatic stress disorder is a common condition that affects millions of people across the world. Up to date recommendations based on the best available evidence are vital to prevent and treat this debilitating condition. In this issue, we are bringing together a series of systematic reviews and meta-analyses that underpinned the development o...

Background: Recent evidence showed adverse mental health outcomes associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, including trauma-related symptoms. The Global Psychotrauma Screen (GPS) is a brief instrument designed to assess a broad range of trauma-related symptoms with no available validation in the Italian population. Aims: This study aimed to examine t...