ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Refugee groups fleeing war and violence and resettling in the West are one of the population groups that are poorly understood. Understanding their mental health challenges and providing effective and evidence-based interventions continue to be formidable challenges. AIM: This study presents a refugee mental health framework [RMHF] that was developed to address the gaps in understanding and responding to the needs of refugee populations by prioritizing their voices, and incorporating lessons learned from working with these refugee communities into the development of the framework. METHOD: A RMHF was developed, presented and refined with input from refugee communities, multiple stakeholders and an expert panel. RESULTS/CONCLUSIONS: This paper presents the process and finalized framework, and discusses its utility as a mapping, planning and intervention tool in supporting refugee communities with their resettlement and promoting mental wellbeing.
Subject(s)
Refugees , Humans , Refugees/psychology , Mental Health , ViolenceABSTRACT
In this article we explore Sri Lankan Tamil immigrant women's views on factors contributing to intimate partner violence (IPV). We conducted eight focus groups with young, midlife, and senior women and women who experienced IPV. Three main themes emerged: postmigration sources of stress and conflict, patriarchal social norms that dictated gendered behavior, and individual male attributes and behaviors. Study participants recognized gender inequality and financial dependence as contributing factors and the role of women in promoting marital harmony. Findings suggest that pre- and postmigration factors need to be considered in the prevention of IPV in newcomer communities.
Subject(s)
Emigration and Immigration , Social Perception , Spouse Abuse/ethnology , Spouse Abuse/psychology , Adaptation, Psychological , Adult , Aged , Canada/epidemiology , Cultural Characteristics , Female , Focus Groups , Humans , Interpersonal Relations , Male , Middle Aged , Socioeconomic Factors , Spouses/ethnology , Sri Lanka/ethnology , Stress, PsychologicalABSTRACT
The influence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on cognitive control and auditory attention modulation was examined with the use of a dichotic-listening (DL) task. The participants were 45 war-exposed refugees. The PTSD group comprised 22 participants meeting the DSM-IV criteria for PTSD, and the Control group comprised 23 war-exposed participants without PTSD. Both groups were tested with a consonant-vowel syllables DL task under three different attentional instructions. The two groups did not differ in the non-forced and forced-right conditions and showed, as expected, right-ear advantages. The Control group showed, as expected, a left-ear advantage in the forced-left (FL) condition. However, the PTSD group continued to show a right-ear advantage--and only minor modulation of the performance during the FL condition. This finding suggests that PTSD is associated with a reduced capacity for top-down attentional control of a bottom-up or stimulus-driven effect. The result shows that participants with PTSD have impaired cognitive control functions when tested on information processing of neutral stimuli.
Subject(s)
Cognition Disorders/diagnosis , Cognition Disorders/etiology , Dichotic Listening Tests/methods , Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic/complications , Adolescent , Adult , Analysis of Variance , Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders , Female , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Young AdultABSTRACT
Research on intimate partner violence (IPV) across populations is challenging because of the multiplicity of definitions and lack of clarity about the behaviors that constitute IPV. The purpose of this study was to examine the ways in which Sri Lankan Tamil women in Toronto understand, define, and experience IPV. Focus group interviews were conducted with women representing different ages and stages of life. Findings suggest that definitions of IPV were not culturally specific. Rather, the Tamil women defined IPV broadly and recognized different forms of coercive control. However, psychologically abusive behaviors were identified that held particular meanings for this community.
Subject(s)
Battered Women/psychology , Cultural Characteristics , Interpersonal Relations , Spouse Abuse/ethnology , Women's Health/ethnology , Adult , Attitude to Health , Female , Focus Groups , Humans , Middle Aged , Ontario/epidemiology , Social Values , Spouse Abuse/psychology , Spouses/ethnology , Sri Lanka/ethnology , Surveys and QuestionnairesABSTRACT
The present study focuses on verbal learning and memory alterations in refugees with posttraumatic stress disorder, and whether the alterations are related to attention, acquisition, storage, or retrieval. Twenty-one refugees exposed to war and political violence with chronic PTSD, were compared to an exposed control sample of 21 refugees without PTSD. No differences were found in attention span, but tests of verbal memory showed less efficient learning in the PTSD sample. Group differences in delayed recall could be explained by learning efficiency. No differences were seen in recognition memory. These results indicate that memory alterations in PTSD are related to impaired acquisition and less effective encoding of the memory material and not to impaired attention span and/or impaired retrieval. Controlling for specific PTSD symptom clusters and self-reported depression showed that the intrusion subscale and depressive reactions are the most important symptoms in understanding the memory alterations in PTSD.
Subject(s)
Depression/epidemiology , Depression/psychology , Memory Disorders/epidemiology , Memory Disorders/etiology , Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic/epidemiology , Adult , Depression/diagnosis , Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders , Female , Humans , Life Change Events , Male , Memory Disorders/diagnosis , Severity of Illness Index , Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic/diagnosis , Surveys and QuestionnairesABSTRACT
UNLABELLED: Twenty-two subjects with chronic PTSD were compared to 23 subjects with no diagnoses (NPD) on tests of executive functioning (EF) that are assumed to have clinical significance after exposure to political violence. METHOD: The three cognitive components of EF, intentionality, inhibition and executive memory [Burgess, P. W., Alderman, N., Evans, J., Emslie, H., Wilson, B. A. (1998). The ecological validity of tests of executive function. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 4, 547-58], were measured using the Tower of London, Stroop Color-Word Test and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), respectively. RESULTS: The PTSD group was impaired on tasks measuring automatic processing and executive memory. Executive memory problems were related to elevated posttraumatic symptoms, but the executive components intentionality and inhibition did not differentiate the groups. Arousal and intrusive symptoms had no impact on intentionality. CONCLUSION: Posttraumatic symptoms are related to automatic processing problems and impairment in executive memory. Observed dysfunctions in mental flexibility could have a negative impact on the cognitive processing of traumatic memory, thus preventing from recovery.
Subject(s)
Cognition Disorders/etiology , Politics , Refugees/psychology , Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic/complications , Violence/psychology , Adolescent , Adult , Case-Control Studies , Chronic Disease , Emigration and Immigration , Female , Higher Nervous Activity , Humans , Inhibition, Psychological , Intention , Male , Memory , Middle Aged , Norway , Psychological Tests , Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic/psychology , Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic/rehabilitationABSTRACT
This study focuses on the impact of present ideological commitment on posttraumatic stress symptoms in former child soldiers living in exile. Eighteen men and two women (aged 25-37), who had joined different Tamil armed groups in Sri Lanka between the ages of 13 and 17 years, participated. The Impact of Event Scale was used to measure posttraumatic symptoms. Qualitative methods were used to investigate the participants' ideological commitment. Participants reported being exposed to many potentially traumatizing events, and had high scores on the Impact of Event Scale. Twenty-five percent of the sample showed strong ideological commitment to the "cause". Ideological commitment at the present seemed to predict better mental health when exposure was less intense and overwhelming. Time had a negative impact on ideological commitment.