Trauma, poverty and mental health among Somali and Rwandese refugees living in an African refugee settlement – an epidemiological study

The Posttraumatic Diagnostic Scale (PDS) and the Hopkins Symptom Checklist 25 were used to screen for posttraumatic stress disorder and depression.Thirty two percent of the Rwandese and 48.1% of the Somali refugees were found to suffer from PTSD. The Somalis refugees had a mean of 11.95 (SD = 6.17) separate traumatic event types while the Rwandese had 8.86 (SD = 5.05). The Somalis scored a mean sum score of 21.17 (SD = 16.19) on the PDS while the Rwandese had a mean sum score of 10.05 (SD = 9.7).Mental health consequences of conflict remain long after the events are over, and therefore mental health intervention is as urgent for post-conflict migrant populations as physical health and other emergency interventions. A mental health outreach program was initiated based on this study.The firm establishment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as a category of mental ill health in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) has inspired fervent research into its epidemiological manifestations and characteristics.Since the critically acclaimed National Co-morbidity Survey of 8,098 subjects in the United States [1]other epidemiological studies have established PTSD prevalence rates and other epidemiological characteristics in European [2-6], Australian and other western populations.More recently, research has focused on post-conflict refugee populations from low-income countries who have relocated to western countries. These include Southeast Asian (Indochinese) [7], Kosovar [8], Cambodian [9], or Bosnian refugees [10] relocated to the United States or Australia [11], or to the United Kingdom [12], who in general show higher prevalence rates than western populations.In a similar vein, emerging research in post-conflict populations relocated to other low-income host countries or remnant in their countries of origin, such as Bosnian refugees relocated to Croatia [13], Afghan refugees resident in Pakistan [14] or Tibetan refugees resident in India [15] continue to demonst