Mental disorder and PTSD in Syria during wartime: a national-wide crisis

Abstract

Background: Syria has experienced war over the past seven years, leaving a high percentage of the population below the poverty line. This has significantly impacted Syrians which is reflected in the psychiatric aspect. This study evaluates the severity of the mental disorder caused by war and other factors, and evaluates the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in addition to support provided to Syrians. Methods: Online surveys including the Kessler 10 (K10) survey, the Screen for Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms (SPTSS) tool, the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) and demographic and war-related questions were used for this study. Results: Our study included 1951 participants, comprising 527 (27.0%) males and 1538 (78.8%) aged (19-25) years. Of all the participants in the study, 44% had severe mental disorder, 27% had severe mental disorder with full PTSD symptoms, 36.9% had full PTSD symptoms, 79% had at least one PTSD symptom, and 10.8% had neither PTSD symptoms nor mental disorder. Only 23.2% had low overall support. Half of the responders were internally displaced and 27.6% of these participants were forced to move three times or more due to war. Only 13.4% of the responders did not believe that the crisis was the reason for their distress. Those with high SPTSS and K10 scores were found to take more days off of work or school due to negative feelings and have somatic symptoms. Moreover, low levels of education, low socioeconomic status, chronic medical conditions, war variables for example distress caused by war noises, changing place of living due to war were all associated with high distress and the presence of PTSD symptoms in this study. Strong significant correlation (r=0.623) was found between SPTSS and k10 score. Conclusion: The conflict in Syria has left the country’s population at great risk of psychological and mental distress. Drastic measures are required to save an entire population from permanent psychological suffering.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anger and Mental health of school students in Syria after ten years of conflict: a large scale school-based study

“…Higher prevalence of PTSD was found in people who encountered a traumatic event and/or were exposed to the war in Syria [4]. PTSD symptoms lead to considerable impairment and severely disrupt social, occupational, and educational performance and functioning.…”

“…While there has been some attention to rates of PTSD in Syria [4], few studies have been concerned with the status of children [11][12][13]. These studies found that higher social support was correlated with a lower probability of having PTSD [4,14]. However these existing studies suffer from considerable limitations.…”

Laryngopharyngeal Reflux Disease in War-torn Syria and its Association with Smoking and other Risks.

“…Another theory is that as allergic rhinitis is very common in Syria (11), and that allergic rhinitis and LPR may be correlated (24) which could explain this nding. We also speculate that the high psychological stress that Syrians face with high prevalence of severe mental disorder from war (12), this could cause dyspepsia and exaggerating of GORD symptoms which can mimic LPR. Similarly, we found in our study that being distressed from war noises was correlated with a higher frequency for LPR, suggesting that quality of life and psychological factors could also have contributed to our ndings.…”

“…In patients with LPR, males comprised of 20.5% (CI 95%: 15.4-26.1), females comprised of 79.5% (CI 95%: 73.9-84.6), cigarette smoking comprised of 21.4% (CI 95%: 16.2-26.9) shisha smoking comprised of 33.3% (CI 95%: 27.4-39.7), subjects with asthma comprised of 4.3% (CI 95%: 2.1-7.3), and subjects with allergic reactions comprised of 8.1% (CI 95%: 4. [7][8][9][10][11][12].…”

“…Living in Syria may expose its residents to unusual substances chronically either from smoking shisha which is quite common, drinking mate, the unique environment, and war exposure as it exposes to different substances (9,10). Allergic rhinitis prevalence was found to compose around half of the population (11) with a high prevalence of distress from war (12). LPR has a wide variety of symptoms of laryngeal irritation such as coughing having a sore throat, hoarseness, dysphonia and even globus pharyngeus (13).…”