Centre for Policy on Ageing



The long-term impact of war experiences and evacuation on people who were children during World War Two
Author(s)	Melinda J Waugh, Ian Robbins, Stephen Davies
Journal title	Aging & Mental Health, vol 11, no 2, March 2007
Pages	pp 168-174
Source	http://www.tandfonline.com
Keywords	War ; Elder abuse ; Neglect [care] ; Long term ; Cognitive processes ; Evaluation ; Social surveys.
Annotation	During World War Two, 1.9 million people were evacuated from British cities where the risk of bombing was perceived to be highest. 1.5 million of these were children who, often unaccompanied, were sent to live with strangers. 245 people who were evacuated as children were compared with 96 of similar age who did not experience evacuation. Within this self-selected sample, significant numbers of the evacuees were found to have experienced abuse and neglect. Pre-evacuation abuse made continued abuse likely during evacuation, while abuse during evacuation led to continued likelihood of abuse on their returning home. Abuse during evacuation led to increased scores on the Impact of Event Scale (IES) and General Health Questionnaire (GHQ), and to insecure attachment patterns. The role of evacuation and abuse in the maintenance of long-term psychological problems is discussed. (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-070514214 A
Classmark	VMC: QNT: QNR: 4Q: DA: 4C: 3F
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...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.