Rates and impact of trauma and current stressors among Darfuri refugees in Eastern Chad.

Abstract

Darfur refugees face hardships associated with chronic displacement, including lack of basic needs and safety concerns. Psychiatric research on refugees has focused on trauma, but daily stressors may contribute more to variance in distress. In this article we report rates of past trauma and current stressors among Darfur refugees and gauge the contribution of each to psychological distress and functional impairment. A representative sample of 848 Darfuris in two refugee camps were interviewed about traumatic events, stressors faced in the camps, psychological distress and functional impairment. Basic needs and safety concerns were more strongly correlated with measures of distress (r's = .19-.31) than were war-related traumatic events (r's = .09-.20). Hierarchical regression supported models in which effects of trauma on distress were mediated by current stressors. Although war-related traumatic events are the initial causes of refugees' hardship, findings suggest that the day-to-day challenges and concerns in camps mediate psychological distress associated with these events.The crisis in Darfur, Sudan and neighboring countries presents a convergence of festering ethnic tension, multiple armed groups, a largely undefined border region, and an unforgiving natural environment. Such conditions make humanitarian intervention extremely difficult. An estimated 300,000 people have been killed, and 2.5 million have been displaced from their homes (WHO, 2008). Approximately 250,000 of the displaced have fled to twelve

Determinants of psychiatric disorders in children refugees in Turkey’s Yazidi refugee camp

“…It has been stated that post-flight experiences could be as important as pre-flight experiences in the development of psychiatric disorders among refugee children [32]. High prevalent rates of psychiatric disorders observed among refugee children must be evaluated because of a complex interaction between pre and post-flight experiences [33].…”

Long-term psychiatric consequences of exposure to trauma in Cambodia: A regional household survey

“…Daily stressors have been found to be particularly salient for psychological distress in post-disaster and post-conflict settings such as Sri Lanka and Chad (Fernando, Miller, & Berger, 2010;Rasmussen et al, 2010). A study in Afghanistan found that high levels of daily stressors attenuated the relationship between war-related violence and depression/PTSD (Miller et al, 2008).…”

The Reconciliation Attitudes of Former Child Soldiers in Northern Uganda

“…Above, one of the known mental health outcomes of exposure to war-related stressors is symptoms of posttraumatic stress [4], which include symptoms of avoidance. Above, daily stressors have been found to mediate the effects of war-related stressors [30] to produce posttraumatic stress reactions in victims. Since our study participants were exposed to a wide range of both war-related and daily stressors, it is not surprising that they also reported attitudes of avoidance.…”