Twenty percent of the world's children and adolescents suffer from a disabling mental illness, and this percentage is thought to be increasing (WHO, 2003). Moreover, subclinical mental illness is thought to compromise quality of life for thousands more children. Globalization and cultural change also appear to play a role in the worldwide increase of diagnosed mental illness among children and adolescents (WHO, 2003). One of the psychiatric illnesses linked to cultural change is posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Although the sociocultural and psychological pathways that lead to an increase in diagnoses of PTSD under conditions of change such as war have been well studied, these pathways have been less carefully examined in more normative situations such as economic and cultural globalization.

One cause of PTSD is child maltreatment. Korbin (1987) has suggested a relationship between cultural change and an increase in child maltreatment, though the exact way this increase affects PTSD prevalence is unknown. Following is a well-accepted definition of child maltreatment containing three tiers: