Adverse Childhood Experiences, Mental Health, and Risk Behaviors Among Men in the Solomon Islands

Abstract

Compared with many parts of the world, there has been little research in Pacific Island nations into the effects of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on adult health. This is a significant gap for local evidence-based child protection. We describe findings from a survey of 400 men aged 18 to 70 years recruited from randomly sampled households in Honiara city, Solomon Islands. Most men reported multiple adversities during childhood (80.7% 3 or more; 46% 5 or more), such as exposure to community and domestic violence, bullying, physical maltreatment, and sexual abuse. Men with multiple ACEs had significantly lower well-being and more psychological distress, recent stressful life events, and health risk behaviors. This study reports the first observation that betel quid chewing increased as a function of multiple ACEs. In comparison with recent East Asian studies, the Solomon Islands data suggest that the collective geographic category of "Asia-Pacific" masks significant intraregional differences in childhood adversities.

An Indonesian Adaptation of the World Health Organization Adverse Childhood Experiences International Questionnaire (WHO ACE-IQ) as a Screening Instrument for Adults

“…This study also showed the highest prevalence of emotional violence is in Myanmar, while the highest physical and emotional abuse is in Vietnam (Thang et al, 2017). A study on ACE in another Asian Pacific country by Lui et al (2018) was conducted in Solomon Island. Although the participants of the study were only male, the results were quite surprising.…”

Prevalence and predictors of lower urinary tract symptoms in Solomon Islander adult men

“…The methodology, recruitment and response rates have been described in detail elsewhere. 17,18 In brief, this paper used a cross-sectional survey design, and data on LUTS were collected from 400 men aged 18–70 years from a cohort of community-dwelling men in Honiara, Solomon Islands.…”

Prevalence and correlates of psychological distress among a national population-based sample of adults in Solomon Islands

“…Psychological distress has been measured with different screening instruments, such as the ‘Psychological Distress Scale’, K-6 or K-10 and the ‘General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12)’, and is commonly used to describe the extent of population mental health (Drapeau et al, 2014). High rates of mental ill health have been reported in the Pacific island nations (Hunter et al, 2015; Lui et al, 2018; Peltzer & Pengpid, 2015), but there has been a lack of community-based national data on psychological distress in Pacific Island countries, such as in Solomon Islands.…”

“…Biopsychosocial stressors associated with psychological distress include stressful life events (Caron & Liu, 2011; Lui et al, 2018), history of serious disease, such as stroke, myocardial infarction, or cancer (Kuriyama et al, 2009), cardiovascular disease (Chittleborough et al, 2011), hypertension (Ojike et al, 2016), arthritis (Chittleborough et al, 2011), being HIV positive (Mthembu et al, 2017), general underweight (Kuriyama et al, 2009), functional disability (Okoro & Dhingra, 2014) and passive smoking (Bang et al, 2017).…”