Functional Disability and Depression among Internally Displaced Persons in North-East Nigeria

Abstract

<jats:p>A common factor in the development of mental disorders, including depression, is exposure to trauma. Boko Haram crisis has ravaged the North East part of Nigeria and has left indelible traumatic effect on the inhabitants especially the Internally Displaced People (IDPs) who fled their homes for survival. Previous studies reported high rates of depression and disability among IDPs. We set out to investigate the prevalence of depression, disability and correlates among the IDPs in two selected camps in Yobe state. We carried out a cross sectional study among 422 adult IDPs selected through a systematic sampling method. One hundred and ninety two (45.5%) were males. The mean age of the subjects was 39.4±18.50 years with range of 18-80 years. Of the 422 IDPs, 166(39.3%) had probable depression and 76(18.0%) had definite depression. Factors significantly associated with diagnosis of depression were; age (p=0.028), marital status (p=0.001), living condition (p=0.001), general health (p=0.001) and WHODAS 2.0 scores (p=0.001). Logistic regression revealed that age &lt;20years (OR=8.4;p=0.001), being an IDP in the camp irrespective of the living condition (OR=3.6;p=0.001), being single/unmarried (OR=10.0;p=0.048) and comorbid PTSD predicted diagnosis of depression. Having a disability score in the severe range (OR=5.7;p=0.001) strongly correlated with having depression in the study. There is a high rate of depression among IDPs in North-east, Nigeria. Having a diagnosis of depression correlated well with the severity of disability in study. We recommend regular psychiatric services as part of routine medical services to IDPs as health cannot be complete without mental health.</jats:p>

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder and Functional Disability among Internally Displaced Persons in North-East Nigeria

“…We sampled 450 participants as part of survey on mental illness among Internally Displaced Persons in Yobe State. 8…”

“…The study took place in July 2017 as part of a large-scale survey of IDPs in North East Nigeria, aspects of which has been published elsewhere. 8 Two IDP camps namely Kukareta and Mallam Aliyu Mohammed Gombe farm in Damaturu, Yobe state with an estimated population of 11,000, which is about 61% of all IDPs in the state at the time of the study were sampled.…”

“…Systematic sampling technique was employed to select IDPs for the study. 8 The study instruments were a sociodemographic questionnaire, Hopkins Symptom Checklist (HSC-25) 9 for symptoms of depression, Harvard Trauma Questionnaire (HTQ) 10 for symptoms of PTSD, The World Health Organization's Disability Assessment Schedule 2.0 (WHO-DAS 2.0) 11 was used to measure functional disability. Definite diagnosis of PTSD and depression were made using the WHO Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) 12 for PTSD and Depression.…”