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Assessing Mental Health Outcomes of Political Violence and Civil Unrest in Peru

Department of Psychiatry and Douglas Institute Research Center, McGill University, Montreal, Canada, trejac{at}douglas.mcgill.ca

Duncan Pedersen

Department of Psychiatry and Douglas Institute Research Center, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

Consuelo Errazuriz

Douglas Institute Research Center, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Background: Sustained political violence (SPV) may have long-term effects.

Aims: To assess mental and residual effects of exposure to SPV. To validate a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) assessment tool in Quechua-speaking Peru.

Method: Survey of 373 individuals aged 15 and over using the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12), Hopkins Symptom Checklist (HSCL-25) and a Trauma Questionnaire (TQ), derived from the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire. Sociodemographics were recorded. Reliability was assessed. Data reduction used factor analysis and modelling multiple regressions.

Results: A quarter of the sample had symptoms compatible with PTSD. Questionnaire reliability ranged from 0.81 to 0.89. Factor analysis confirmed high construct validity for TQ and HSCL-25. Modelling showed a strong association of PTSD-related symptoms and expressions of distress with the degree of exposure to SPV, especially among returnees.

Conclusions: Long-term consequences of exposure to SPV take the form of PTSD, anxiety and depressive disorders, and culturally formulated expressions of distress. Some implications for clinicians are discussed.

Key Words: local idioms of distress • long-term consequences • political violence • post-traumatic stress disorder

This version was published on September 1, 2009

International Journal of Social Psychiatry, Vol. 55, No. 5, 449-463 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0020764009103214


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