Posttraumatic idioms of distress among Darfur refugees

Hozun and Majnun

Bibliographic Data

ID2394846
AuthorsAndrew Rasmussen (0000-0001-9149-4795, New York University School of Medicine, corresponding author), Basila Katoni (Feed the Children, Nairobi, Kenya), Allen S Keller (New York University School of Medicine), John Wilkinson (0000-0001-8728-4146, University School)
Year2011
Volume48
Issue4
Pages392-415
Publication date2011-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueTranscultural Psychiatry (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1363-4615 • E-ISSN: 1461-7471
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1363461511409283
PMID21911508
OpenAlexW2018654331
LanguageEN
Citations received30
References cited32

Although psychosocial programming is seen as essential to the humanitarian response to the Darfur conflict, aid groups lack culturally-appropriate assessment instruments for monitoring and evaluation. The current study used an emic-etic integrated approach to: (i) create a culturally-appropriate measure of distress (Study 1), and (ii) test the measure in structured interviews of 848 Darfuris living in two refugee camps in Chad (Study 2). Traditional healers identified two trauma-related idioms, hozun and majnun, which shared features with but were not identical to posttraumatic stress disorder and depression. Measures of these constructs were reliable and correlated with trauma, loss, and functional impairment. Exploratory factor analysis resulted in empirical symptom clusters conceptually parallel to general Western psychiatric constructs. Findings are discussed in terms of their implications for psychosocial programming

Distress · Emic and etic · Empirical research · Exploratory research · Functional impairment · Psychiatry · Psychosocial · Refugee · Sociology · Clinical Psychology · Health and Conflict Studies · Migration, Health and Trauma · Psychology · Resilience and Mental Health