Trauma coping of mothers and children among poor people in Haiti: Mixed methods study of community-level research.

Abstract

A qualitative interview is sensitive to social complexities and personal subjectivities, whereas quantitative assessment relies on preexisting frameworks to place responses in hierarchical frequencies and counts individual experiences as an additive aggregate. Using both enquiries, a mixed methods sequential exploratory design studied mothers' focus groups and their children's trauma assessment in 3 poor communities in the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The authors partnered with a free primary care clinic where they serve as U.S. behavioral health psychologists. The study enquired how Haitian children are socialized by their mothers'/caregivers' religious and nonreligious coping in the context of continuous trauma. Focus group questions for mothers (n ϭ 27), the House-Tree-Person (HTP) drawing test for their children (n ϭ 42), and their directions were translated, back-translated, and administered in Haitian Créole by trained Haitian staff members. Religious, African humanism, and shame stigma themes emerged from the focus groups. Correlations and multiple regressions examined relationships of the frequencies of the mothers' coping themes and with their children's scores on 2 factorial dimensions, Resilience-Vulnerability Integrated and Person Feeling Unloved. These conceptual factors were derived from culturally adapted ratings of children's HTP drawings in previous studies in the same communities (Roysircar, Colvin, Afolayan, Thompson, & Robertson, 2017;Roysircar, Geisinger, & Thompson, 2019). Significant negative relationships of religious and African humanism coping with shame stigma coping and their respective significant negative and positive relationships with children's trauma adjustment scores are integrated in a mixed methods design, related to the African diaspora literature, and approached with transnational feminist theory. Public Significance StatementOn the basis of the present transnational study in a primary care setting in Haiti, it is understood that mothers' religiousness and African cultural values can help to alleviate their children's despair and provide hope in traumatic circumstances of poverty compounded by disasters. Children of mothers who spoke more about the ways that religion and cultural values helped their children during adversity expressed less vulnerability than children of mothers who spoke less about the benefits of religion and cultural values. The findings were nuanced with children's expression of ineffectiveness.

Responses to the 2014 Police Shooting of Michael Brown: Cosmology Episodes and Enacted Environments

“…Concentrating on events and people as if they exist in a vacuum distorts reality and directs us to implement misguided interventions (Orton and O'Grady 2016;Roysircar 2019). If interventions bypass the source of the tensions to focus on the flashpoint triggers, our communities will continue to protest.…”

Children’s disaster trauma in Haiti: Configurations of similarities and dissimilarities in experiences.

“…For communities of African descent, such as Haitians, natural disasters are more challenging because they are contextualized within human-made disasters, such as a history of slavery, colonialism, and governmental mishandlings, making them vulnerable to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) (Nobles, 2013). Haitian survivors of continuous trauma, though, weave religious meaning into their interpretations, responses, and coping styles, more so than many populations (Aten et al, 2014; Roysircar et al, 2019b). Haitians also have an empowering collective history of overcoming their oppressors and other adversities (O’Grady et al, 2012).…”

“…By the same token, HTP Vulnerability and CROP appear as polar opposites or, at the very least, exhibiting sensitivity to very different experiences from the other cluster (HTP Resilience, SCS, and HSS). Two dimensions were anticipated for the study given the theoretical premise of Resilience and Vulnerability of disaster trauma in Haiti (cf., Roysircar et al, 2017Roysircar et al, , 2019aRoysircar et al, , 2019b.…”

“…HTP Vulnerability and CROP fell in dimension one (Feeling Unloved), and HTP Resilience, HESS, and SCS fell in dimension two (Balance of Good and Evil). It is suggested that informed scale selection and interpretation were grounded in the theory of contextual trauma and resilience, knowledge of instrumentation, culturally informed research in an international disaster setting, and transnational trauma practice (cf., Roysircar et al, 2017Roysircar et al, , 2019aRoysircar et al, , 2019b.…”

“…The present study sought to gain better understanding of the ways Haitian children respond during times of adversity. The House-Tree-Person (HTP) drawing test, culturally adapted for Haitians (Roysircar et al, 2017(Roysircar et al, , 2019a(Roysircar et al, , 2019b, was used to assess Resilience and Vulnerability in 75 Haitian children's 225 drawings to map the spatial configurations of their trauma experiences in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake and continuous trauma. Assessment data also included interviews with child self-report measures of self-esteem perceived by self, peers, and family; posttraumatic symptoms; and self-concept.…”