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Posttraumatic stress disorder and psychiatric co-morbidity: symptoms in a random sample of female Bosnian refugees

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2020

Kristina Sundquist ,
Leena-Maria Johansson ,
Valeri DeMarinis ,
Sven-Erik Johansson  and
Jan Sundquist
Kristina Sundquist*
Affiliation:
Karolinska Institute, Department of Family Medicine, Center for Research in Migration Medicine and Psychiatry (MigraMed), Alfred Nobels allé 12, SE-141 83Huddinge, Stockholm, Sweden
Leena-Maria Johansson
Affiliation:
Karolinska Institute, Department of Family Medicine, Center for Research in Migration Medicine and Psychiatry (MigraMed), Alfred Nobels allé 12, SE-141 83Huddinge, Stockholm, Sweden
Valeri DeMarinis
Affiliation:
Theological Institute, Psychology of Religion, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
Sven-Erik Johansson
Affiliation:
Karolinska Institute, Department of Family Medicine, Center for Research in Migration Medicine and Psychiatry (MigraMed), Alfred Nobels allé 12, SE-141 83Huddinge, Stockholm, Sweden
Jan Sundquist
Affiliation:
Karolinska Institute, Department of Family Medicine, Center for Research in Migration Medicine and Psychiatry (MigraMed), Alfred Nobels allé 12, SE-141 83Huddinge, Stockholm, Sweden
*
*Corresponding author. Tel.: +46 8 5248 8708; fax: +46 8 5248 8706. E-mail address: kristina.sundquist@klinvet.ki.se (K. Sundquist).
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Abstract

Objectives

This study investigated psychological symptoms in Bosnian women 3–4 years after their arrival in Sweden.

Methods

A simple random sample of 163 Bosnian women aged 19–59 was drawn from the Swedish populations register in 1996. The control group consisted of 392 Swedish-born women. Data were collected in face-to-face interviews. The Hopkins Symptom Checklist 25 (HSCL-25) and the Posttraumatic Symptom Scale (PTSS-10) were used to measure psychological symptoms of depression, anxiety, psychological distress, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Unconditional logistic regression was used to estimate odds ratios (OR) for psychological symptoms after adjustment for age, country of birth, education, marital status, economic difficulties, social network, and feeling secure.

Results

The prevalence of symptoms of PTSD was 28.3% among the Bosnian women. Bosnian women had significantly higher risks of symptoms of depression, anxiety, and psychological distress than Swedish-born women. For depression the odds ratio was 9.50 among Bosnian women.

Conclusions

Psychiatric community interventions need to target Bosnian refugee women. Awareness among health-care workers who encounter these women in a clinical setting should be improved.

Keywords

Bosnian refugeesPTSDMental healthRandom sample
Type
Original article
Information
European Psychiatry , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , March 2005 , pp. 158 - 164
Copyright
Copyright © Elsevier SAS 2005

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