The mental health of forcibly displaced couples

Abstract

Most current research investigating traumatic stress is focused on its effects at the individual level, utilizing the implicit assumption that trauma-related disorders are mutually independent within families and communities. However, there is reason to assume that trauma-related symptoms within couples are influenced by each partner's risk factors and symptoms. Using the actor-partner interdependence model, this study aimed to test whether symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression were predicted by participants' partner's exposure to traumatic events over and above the influence of the participant's own experiences. For this purpose, we interviewed 687 heterosexual, married Iraqi and Syrian couples in Iraq's Kurdistan region who had been forcefully displaced. We assessed symptoms of PTSD and depression using locally validated scales.Nearly all participants (98.8%) reported exposure to at least one traumatic event, with husbands reporting exposure to a higher number of traumatic events than wives, d = 0.48, p < .001. More than half of the participants met the criteria for a probable PTSD (61.1%) or major depressive disorder diagnosis (60.4%). Within couples, significant actor effects of experienced trauma exposure on personal PTSD and depressive symptoms were observed for both husbands and wives. Further, there were significant partner effects of wives' traumatic experiences on husbands' PTSD and depressive symptoms as well as of husbands' traumatic experiences on wives' PTSD and depressive symptoms. The findings argue for the interdependence of trauma-related symptoms within dyads in a dual-trauma context, suggesting the presence of intracouple transmission of trauma-related symptoms.Forced migration has been one of the most consistent, prominent characteristics of humanitarian crises (Kaya et al., 2019). According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), by the end of 2019, the number of individuals forcibly displaced due to war and conflict reached more than 79,500,000 million worldwide (UNHCR, 2020). There are many ways war negativelyThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

Does Time Heal Trauma? 18 Month Follow-Up Study of Syrian Refugees’ Mental Health in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region

“…Finally, since the current study participants were married couples, the trajectories of mental disorders might differ among single people. This is because of the interdependence of trauma-related symptoms within couples, in which a husband is influenced not only by his trauma but also by his wife’s trauma as well, and vice versa [ 67 ]. Therefore, further follow-up studies on the mental health of traumatized people outside of the couples’ context are recommended.…”