Measuring psychiatric disorder among Southeast Asian refugees

1986 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 627-639 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morton Beiser ◽  
Jonathan A. E. Fleming
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Psychiatric Disorder ◽  
Cultural Study ◽  
Concurrent Validity ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Culturally Sensitive ◽  
Southeast Asian ◽  
Good Reliability ◽  
Southeast Asian Refugees ◽  
Stability Of Structure

SynopsisFour measures of mental health – Panic, Depression, Somatization and Well-Being – have been developed for use in a population of Southeast Asian refugees. The scales, a product of work with 1348 refugees, demonstrate conceptual significance, good reliability, concurrent validity and stability of structure across samples. They are culturally sensitive, enabling intra-cultural study as well as screening for clinical purposes. The measures also permit comparisons, for research purposes, with non-Asians.

Symptoms of War Trauma Induced Psychiatric Disorders: Southeast Asian Refugees and Vietnam Veterans

1987 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 820-832 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynn R. August ◽  
Barbara A. Gianola
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Psychiatric Disorder ◽  
Psychiatric Disorders ◽  
Vietnam Veterans ◽  
Clinical Manifestations ◽  
Mental Health Disorders ◽  
Southeast Asian ◽  
War Trauma ◽  
Southeast Asian Refugees ◽  
Health Disorders

This article compares the symptomatology of Southeast Asian refugees suffering from mental health disorders with that of Vietnam veterans suffering from psychiatric disorders related to war trauma. Both of these groups share common unresolved feelings and have similar clinical manifestations resulting from the intensity of wartime atrocities. Similarities in the symptoms presented by these two groups suggest the Southeast Asian refugees may also suffer from the same type of war trauma induced psychiatric disorder as the Vietnam veterans.

Trauma, time and mental health: a study of temporal reintegration and Depressive Disorder among Southeast Asian refugees

2004 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
pp. 899-910 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. BEISER ◽  
K. A. S. WICKRAMA
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Depressive Disorder ◽  
Health Effects ◽  
Community Sample ◽  
Southeast Asian ◽  
Temporal Orientation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Southeast Asian Refugees ◽  
Time Splitting ◽  
Mental Health Effects

Background. Prior research suggested that time splitting – suppressing the past and dissociating it from present and future – protected refugee mental health in the aftermath of catastrophe. The current study investigates temporal reintegration, defined as cognitive recapture of the past and reconnecting it with present and future, the mental health effects of temporal reintegration, and factors moderating the associated risk for Depressive Disorder.Method. A community sample of 608 Southeast Asian refugees, resettled in Vancouver British Columbia between 1979 and 1981, were interviewed on three separate occasions over a 10-year period. Participants performed a temporal orientation task and responded to questions about employment, social relations and mental health. Depressive Disorder, measured by a typology derived from Grade of Membership analysis of symptoms, constituted the dependent variable. Latent Growth Curve Analysis was used to examine both levels and rates of change in the probability of Depressive Disorder as predicted by changes in temporal reintegration, as well as the contribution of putative social and psychological moderators to explaining variations in growth parameters.Results. Time relatedness increased over the duration of the study. Temporal reintegration jeopardized mental health. Employment and relational stability each moderated the mental health effects of temporal reintegration.Conclusions. Although time splitting may be effective in coping with adversity over the short-term, eventual temporal reintegration is probably ineluctable. Stability in love and work are protective factors, mitigating the mental health vicissitudes of temporal reintegration. Implications for optimal timing of clinical interventions are discussed.

Religion and psychiatry: research, prayer and clinical practice

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (5) ◽  
pp. 282-284
Author(s):  
Christopher C. H. Cook
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Clinical Practice ◽  
Mental Disorder ◽  
Religious Coping ◽  
Clinical Care ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Culturally Sensitive ◽  
Careful Attention

SUMMARYReligious concerns, manifested in thought and behaviour, have a complex, bidirectional and sometimes conceptually overlapping relationship with mental health and mental disorder. Psychiatry, concerning itself with what is measurable in research, and with the relief of distress in clinical practice, has a different perspective on these complex interrelationships than does theology or religion. That which is transcendent, and therefore not measurable, is often important to patients, and sometimes distress may (theologically) be a sign of human well-being. The giving of careful attention to transcendence and distress may variously be conceived of as prayer, religious coping or clinical care. Applications of research to clinical practice, addressing as they do a sensitive and controversial boundary between psychiatry and religion, must therefore be patient centred and culturally sensitive.

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