While trauma memory characteristics are considered a core predictor of adult PTSD, the literature on child PTSD is limited and inconsistent. We investigated whether children’s trauma memory characteristics predict their posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) at 1 month and 6 months post-trauma. We recruited 126 6–13 year olds who experienced a single-incident trauma that led to attendance at an emergency department. We assessed trauma memory disorganisation and sensory-emotional qualities through both narrative recall and self-report questionnaire, and PTSS at 1-month post-trauma and at 6-month follow-up. We found that, after controlling for age, children’s self-reported trauma memory characteristics were positively associated with their concurrent PTSS, and longitudinally predicted symptoms 6-months later. However, observable trauma memory characteristics coded from children’s narratives were not related to PTSS at any time. This suggests that children’s perceptions of their trauma memories are a more reliable predictor of the development and maintenance of PTSS than the nature of their trauma narrative, which has important implications for clinical practice.

虽然创伤记忆特征被认为是成人 PTSD 的核心预测因子，但关于儿童 PTSD 的文献有限且不一致。我们调查了儿童的创伤记忆特征是否可以预测他们在创伤后 1 个月和 6 个月时的创伤后应激症状 (PTSS)。我们招募了 126 名 6 至 13 岁的儿童，他们因一次创伤事件被送往急诊室。我们通过叙述性回忆和自我报告问卷，以及创伤后 1 个月和 6 个月随访时的 PTSS 来评估创伤记忆紊乱和感觉-情绪质量。我们发现，在控制了年龄之后，儿童自我报告的创伤记忆特征与他们并发的 PTSS 呈正相关，并且纵向预测了 6 个月后的症状。然而，从儿童的叙述中编码的可观察到的创伤记忆特征在任何时候都与 PTSS 无关。这表明，与创伤叙述的性质相比，儿童对其创伤记忆的看法是 PTSS 发展和维持的更可靠预测指标，这对临床实践具有重要意义。