Abstract
The literature on mental health in refugee and post-conflict populations has become quite sophisticated in modeling and measuring psychological distress. However, this has not been matched by development in approaches to measuring exposure to trauma. In this chapter we present three critiques of common practices that limit our understanding of refugee and other war-affected populations’ mental health: (1) using trauma exposure checklists that are limited to measuring trauma types and not events per se, (2) examining trauma exposure data using factor analysis (and reflective-indicator models in general), and (3) ignoring how trauma interacts with pre-conflict conditions in models of psychological distress. We argue that addressing these critiques will bring models of mental health closer to refugees’ experiences. Although not an exhaustive list, solutions should include measuring frequency and schedule of trauma exposure, conceptualizing trauma exposure as a composite variable (as opposed to a latent factor), and identifying how trauma moderates the effects of pre-existing stressors on mental health.
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Rasmussen, A., Miller, K.E., Verkuilen, J. (2018). Conceptualization and Measurement of Traumatic Events among Refugees and Other War-Affected Populations. In: Morina, N., Nickerson, A. (eds) Mental Health of Refugee and Conflict-Affected Populations. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97046-2_16
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