Measuring trauma and health status in refugees (original) (raw)
2002, JAMA: the journal of …
RECENT REPORT BY THE US Committee for Refugees estimates there are 14.9 million refugees and 22 million internally displaced persons in the world. 1 Most have experienced significant trauma, including torture, 2-4 as evidenced by prevalence studies in clinics and nonrepresentative community samples. 5-12 Health problems of refugees have also been documented. Clinical research demonstrates a high prevalence of posttraumatic stress and depression symptoms, 6,10,13-15 and community studies using self-rated scales 2-4,8,10,16 and structured diagnostic interviews 9,17-19 have found wide variation in the prevalence of the symptoms of posttraumatic stress (4%-86%) and depression (5%-31%). Refugees experience multiple symptoms, 4,5,20-26 perhaps due to the many types of insults experienced, 4,6,20,23,24,27,28 yet the significance of these symptoms is not clear since many are not characteristic of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, or other defined disorders. 29-35 A few community studies Author Affiliations are listed at the end of this article.