Sources of functioning, symptoms of trauma, and psychological distress: A cross-sectional study with Palestinian health workers operating in West Bank and Gaza strip.

Health-care workers operating in conflict zones are at severe risk of psychological consequences, given their extended exposure to traumatic events under conditions of stress and violence. This quantitative, cross-sectional study was designed to explore the relationships between personal resources (sources of functioning)-operationalized as sense of coherence, posttraumatic growth, and perceived well-being-psychological distress, and trauma symptoms in a specific population of health workers exposed to war and violence. Palestinian health professionals (N = 181) completed quantitative measures of well-being, posttraumatic growth, sense of coherence, psychological distress, and traumatic response. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). The outcomes suggest that sources of psychological functioning consistently play a role in the mental health of different types of health professionals. Health-care workers in an environment characterized by instability and ongoing risk need to protect their own mental health by mobilizing sources of resistance and resilience, such as a sense of coherence, subjective well-being, and growth. We discuss the clinical implications of these findings and offer recommendations for training and supervision. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Sovereign Rules and Rearrangements: Banning Methadone in Occupied Crimea.

In 2014, Russian authorities in occupied Crimea shut down all medication-assisted treatment (MAT) programs for patients with opioid use disorder. These closures dramatically enacted a new political order. As the sovereign occupiers in Crimea advanced new constellations of citizenship and statehood, so the very concept of "right to health" was re-tooled. Social imaginations of drug use helped single out MAT patients as a population whose "right to health," protected by the state, would be artificially restricted. Here, I argue that such acts of medical disenfranchisement should be understood as contemporary acts of statecraft.

Posttraumatic growth is related to subjective well-being of aid workers exposed to cumulative trauma in Palestine.

The present study examined how stress reactions after traumatic events influence subjective well-being (SWB) via the indirect effect of posttraumatic growth (PTG) in two samples of Palestinian professional helpers from the Gaza Strip and West Bank ( n = 201). Using the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) as a dependent measure of well-being, and PTGI-10, PANAS-20, WHO-5 BREF, and IES-13 questionnaires as independent variables, structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to examine whether: (a) cumulative trauma was negatively and directly related to subjective well-being; (b) levels of trauma were positively and directly related to posttraumatic growth; and (c) PTG was positively and directly related to subjective well-being. The findings suggest that posttraumatic growth contributes to mitigating and buffering (on the order of approximately 10%) the effect of trauma on subjective well-being. PTG seems to be a resource that can help aid workers deal with the consequences of stressful life events. Clinical implications and directions for supervision and training are discussed.