Repression, Civil Conflict and Leadership Tenure; the Thai Case Study: 2006-2014

Abstract

The global press tells the story of Thailand as dialectic: a power struggle between two groups, the Red Shirts and Yellow Shirts, who have been at odds for years. The Yellow Shirts represent traditional elites (from business, government and the military) who live in or immediately outside of Bangkok and have benefited from longstanding policies designed to promote the region's economic growth. The Red Shirts include people living outside of Bangkok who come from rural areas and were ignored by government. However, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his sister, former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, redirected incentives from Bangkok towards regional economic development and tried to move the state to be more responsive to the needy.

Are Sinhala and Tamil PHQ-9 versions comparable across the Sri Lankan population? Psychometric equivalence across translations and between demographic subgroups

“…The Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) is widely used globally (22) including as a primary care tool for depression screening, and is regarded as a simple but effective instrument (23). It has also been used to assess prevalence rates for depressive symptoms (5,11,18,(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27). The PHQ-9 consists of nine items, which respondents must rate on a scale of 0 to 3 to indicate the frequency at which they experience symptoms of depression on anchors ranging from "Not at all" to "Nearly every day".…”

“…The PHQ-9 consists of nine items, which respondents must rate on a scale of 0 to 3 to indicate the frequency at which they experience symptoms of depression on anchors ranging from "Not at all" to "Nearly every day". The PHQ-9 has been validated throughout the world, in both lower and higher income countries (18, 21,22,24,25,[27][28][29][30]. Although the PHQ-9 has been used in Sri Lanka, we were unable to nd literature on validation generally or speci cally regarding its factor structure and measurement invariance across the two major languages and other different socio-demographic groups in Sri Lanka.…”