Abstract :
Keywords Assessment/diagnosis; Child/adolescent; Computer/internet technology; Cost-effectiveness; Ethnicity/race; Life events/stress; PTSD/Posttraumatic stress disorder; Trauma Highlights * A low-cost, user-friendly device can reliably record changes in skin conductance. * Children's trauma exposure and symptoms predict physiological responses. * Clinicians can use physiology to provide further potential insight from self-report alone. * Skin conductance allows medical staff to identify children suffering from trauma. Abstract Although many children experience trauma, few receive diagnoses and subsequent care despite experiencing trauma-related sequelae. At age nine (M = 9.11), children (N = 62; female = 46.4%) who predominantly identified as Black (78.7%) were enrolled in this first study examining how skin conductance as captured by mobile technology, eSense, related to children's traumatic experiences and trauma-related symptoms. Skin conductance measures were associated with degree of trauma exposure and PTSD hyperarousal symptoms. These findings suggest that physiological responses in addition to self-report measures may be easily used to assess children's trauma exposure and symptoms. Given eSense's ease-of-use, this technology could assist clinics and research institutions assess children's trauma-related needs. Author Affiliation: (a) Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA (b) Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA * Corresponding author. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences, Wayne State University, Tolan Park Research Clinic, 3901 Chrysler Service Drive, USA. Article History: Received 20 July 2021; Revised 4 January 2022; Accepted 6 January 2022 (footnote)1 JOINT FIRST AUTHOR. Byline: Charis N. Wiltshire (a,1), Cassandra P. Wanna [cpwanna@gmail.com] (a,*,1), Anaïs F. Stenson (a), Sean T. Minton (b), Mariam H. Reda (a), William M. Davie (a), Rebecca Hinrichs (b), Sterling Winters (a), John M. France (a), Tanja Jovanovic (a)