Pooled across all countries, 70.4% of respondents experienced at least one lifetime TE (Fig. 1). The range was quite wide across countries, from a low of 28.6% in Bulgaria to a high of 84.6% in Ukraine, although the interquartile range (IQR; 25th–75th percentiles) of 60.7–76.2% was relatively narrow across countries (Table 3 and online Supplementary Table S1). Of the respondents, 18.2 (S.E. = 0.2) % had been exposed to exactly one TE, 12.7 (S.E. = 0.2) % to two TEs, 9.1 (S.E. = 0.2) % to three TEs and 30.5 (S.E. = 0.3) % to four or more different TEs. Because many people experienced more than one TE, the rate of exposure to any TE was 321.5 per 100 respondents (mean rates for each TE factor by country are described in online Supplementary Table S2 and text). Overall, the most common TE factor was accidents/injuries (36.3%) and least common collective violence (9.4%). The most commonly reported individual TE type was unexpected death of a loved one, which was experienced by 31.4% of all respondents (IQR = 23.3–36.9% across countries) and represented nearly one-sixth (16.5%) of all instances of TE exposure reported in the total sample.
