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- Araya, Mesfin, 1954-
(författare)
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Postconflict internally displaced persons in Ethiopia : mental distress and quality of life in relation to traumatic life events, coping strategy, social support, and living conditions
- 2007
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Background: There are about 23.7 million internally displaced persons worldwide today, still living in the low-income countries. Ethiopia has for the past four decades been ravaged by war and famine. A lengthy civil war resulted in Eritrea, formerly a part of Ethiopia, becoming an independent state in 1991. This war led to displacement of one million people, and currently there are about 55000 internally displaced Ethiopians in Addis Ababa, most of them living in temporary shelters. A minority resettled in a small town Debre Zeit south east of Addis Ababa, dispersed in the community. Objectives: To study the consequences of trauma and extreme stress among these displaced persons. Methods: A random sample of 1200 displaced persons was selected from the Kaliti and Kore shelters of Addis Ababa, aged between 18 and 60 years. They were interviewed by internationally validated instruments which were translated into the Ethiopian official language Amharic. Information thus obtained covered sociodemographics, childhood trauma, traumatic life events, and mental distress as assessed by the SCL-90-R, the four domains of quality of life assessed by WHOQOL-BREF, coping strategies, perceived social support, and basic living conditions. A sample of 120 subjects from the displaced persons living in Debre Zeit was similarly evaluated. A study comparing prevalence rates and risk factors for PTSD in four postconflict, low-income countries (Algeria, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Gaza) was also undertaken. Results: Men, compared to women, reported significantly higher experience of trauma, higher perceived social support, and higher task-oriented coping. Women reported higher emotion-oriented coping. In both genders, emotion-oriented coping was correlated with higher trauma events, and task-oriented coping was correlated with higher perceived social support. Mental distress increased and quality of life decreased with age. Mental distress mediated the effects of most trauma in reducing quality of life, and some trauma reduced quality of life directly. Living conditions were also significantly related to quality of life. Coping strategies and perceived social support influenced mental distress and quality of life directly as well as indirectly by moderation, in part gender specific. Placement in the community setting of Debre Zeit gave a better quality of life compared to placement in the shelters of Addis Ababa. This difference was accounted for by the difference in living conditions, particularly protection from animals (rodents) and insects (mosquitoes), for three domains of quality of life. For domain 3 (social relationships), however, several further factors accounted for the difference, like marital status, ethnic belonging and coping strategy. The comparative study of 4 postconflict countries contributes to the theory that trauma may be the direct cause of the onset of PTSD but that a multiplicity of other adverse events determine the development of this disorder. Conclusions: Using the same assessment methods, a wide range of rates of symptoms of PTSD were found among 4 low-income populations who have experienced war, conflict, or mass violence. In the Ethiopian context we also found gender differences in the trauma background, coping strategies and perceived social support. Mental distress mediated much of the effects of trauma on quality of life. Coping strategies and perceived social support were significant moderators in this process.
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- Araya, Mesfin, et al.
(författare)
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Quality of life after postconflict displacement in Ethiopia : comparing placement in a community setting with that in shelters
- 2011
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Ingår i: Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0933-7954 .- 1433-9285. ; 46:7, s. 585-593
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND: The resilience of post-war displaced persons is not only influenced partly by the nature of premigration trauma, but also by postmigration psychosocial circumstances and living conditions. A lengthy civil war leading to Eritrea separating from Ethiopia and becoming an independent state in 1991 resulted in many displaced persons. METHOD: A random sample of 749 displaced women living in the shelters in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa was compared with a random sample of 110 displaced women living in the community setting of Debre Zeit, 50 km away from Addis Ababa, regarding their quality of life, mental distress, sociodemographics, living conditions, perceived social support, and coping strategies, 6 years after displacement. RESULTS: Subjects from Debre Zeit reported significantly higher quality of life and better living conditions. However, mental distress did not differ significantly between the groups. Also, Debre Zeit subjects contained a higher proportion born in Ethiopia, a higher proportion married, reported higher traumatic life events, employed more task-oriented coping, and perceived higher social support. Factors that accounted for the difference in quality of life between the shelters and Debre Zeit groups in three of the four quality of life domains of WHOQOL-BREF (physical health, psychological, environment), included protection from insects/rodents and other living conditions. However, to account for the difference in the fourth domain (social relationships), psychosocial factors also contributed significantly. CONCLUSION: Placement and rehabilitation in a community setting seems better than in the shelters. If this possibility is not available, measures to improve specific living conditions in the shelters are likely to lead to a considerable increase in quality of life.
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- Brus, Ole, 1982-
(författare)
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Prognostic factors of electroconvulsive therapy for depression
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Depression is a severe disorder that can be difficult to treat. One approach to treating depression is electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), whereby electricity is administered through electrodes fastened to the patient’s head. This procedure is effective, however not all patients respond. Moreover, ECT can induce side effects, such as memory problems. In addition, even after achieving remission patients are likely to relapse at a later date. Thus, it is important to optimize ECT in terms of treatment effectiveness while minimizing its side effects. A further crucial issue is to prevent relapses by developing effective follow-up treatments. This thesis encapsulates four studies with the following goals: 1) to identify which factors that are associated with the worsening of subjective memory, 2) to identify factors that are associated with remission, 3) to quantify the effect of lithium on relapse after ECT for unipolar depression, 4) to investigate whether the difference in time to relapse between continuation ECT (C-ECT) with medication and medication alone during the first year of treatment changes over 10 years following the end of C-ECT treatment in patients with depression.The studies were performed using the Swedish national register data. The first two studies used the outcomes of subjective memory worsening and remission respectively. The third and fourth studies used time to relapse as the outcome.Several factors were associated with the outcomes: in the first, second, and third studies, it was found that older patients were associated with a positive outcome. In both the second and fourth studies, psychotic depression and not having anxiety disorder were associated with positive outcomes. The third study showed that patients who used lithium were less likely to relapse: the hazard ratio with 95% confidence interval among lithium users compared to non-lithium users was 0.84 (0.75–0.93). The fourth study indicated that the beneficial effect of C-ECT and medication compared with medication alone during the first year post-ECT was maintained for several years.In conclusion, it is important to identify factors that are associated with beneficial treatment, and the studies conducted for this thesis contribute to such knowledge.
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- Chotai, Jayanti, et al.
(författare)
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A dual vulnerability hypothesis for seasonal depression is supported by the seasonal pattern assessment questionnaire in relation to the temperament and character inventory of personality in a general population.
- 2004
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Ingår i: Journal of Affective Disorders. - : Elsevier BV. - 0165-0327 .- 1573-2517. ; 82:1, s. 61-70
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND: Personality structure obtained from the psychobiological Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) was studied in relation to self-reported seasonal variations in mood and behavior measured by the Seasonal Pattern Assessment Questionnaire (SPAQ). METHODS: The subjects comprised 1761 adults (57.6% women) in the age range 35-85 years, enrolled in the Betula prospective random cohort study of Umea, Sweden. RESULTS: Personality profiles of subjects who reported the occurrence of a high degree of seasonal variation as such were associated with a combination of high self-transcendence (ST) and high persistence (PS), irrespective of the level of harm avoidance (HA). Subjects who reported feeling worst in winter were associated with high HA, irrespective of the levels of ST and PS. Also, subjects feeling worst in summer or experiencing overall problems with seasonal variation were associated with high HA in their personality profiles. Using the SPAQ criteria to define seasonal affective disorder (SAD) or subsyndromal SAD (S-SAD), subjects with these disorders often had combinations of high self-transcendence (ST) and high persistence (PS), but with different associations with HA. LIMITATIONS: No evaluations were made for SAD or subsyndromal SAD according to the DSM-IV or ICD 10 criteria. CONCLUSIONS: Our results relating SPAQ with TCI give support for a dual vulnerability hypothesis for seasonal depression proposed in the literature, where it is attributed to a combination of a seasonal factor and a depression factor. Examining the literature regarding the relationships between the different TCI scales and monoamine neurotransmitter functions, those relationships suggest that these two vulnerability factors for seasonal depression may be modulated by different neurotransmitter systems.
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- Chotai, Jayanti, et al.
(författare)
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An epidemiological study on gender differences in self-reported seasonal changes in mood and behaviour in a general population of northern Sweden.
- 2004
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Ingår i: Nordic Journal of Psychiatry. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0803-9488 .- 1502-4725. ; 58:6, s. 429-37
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Gender differences have been reported regarding symptoms, prevalence and heritability of seasonal affective disorders (SAD). We focus on gender aspects in this study of self-reported seasonal changes in mood and behaviour in a general population. The Seasonal Pattern Assessment Questionnaire (SPAQ) was completed by 2620 adults (55.6% women) aged 35-85 years, enrolled in the Betula prospective random cohort study of Umeå, Sweden. October to February turned out to be suitable winter months. SAD was found in 2.2% and sub-syndromal SAD (S-SAD) in 5.7%. Women had about 1.5 times higher prevalences than men, and seasonality problems decreased with age in both genders. Preference for eating least was distributed with a peak in summer, whereas preference for eating most had a major peak in winter (winter eaters) and a minor peak in summer (summer eaters). Significantly more of winter eaters in women, and significantly more of summer eaters in men, felt worst in winter. Seasonal change in weight was considered significantly as a problem by women but not by men. Winter behaviour of sleeping most was considered significantly as a problem by men but not by women. Women reacted significantly to temperature-related changes (negatively to cold/short days and positively to hot/long days), whereas men reacted significantly to sunshine-related changes (negatively to cloudy days and positively to sunny days). Subtle gender differences may thus underlie the pathophysiology of seasonal problems. Studies of an eventual efficacy of treating SAD women with raised ambient temperature, and gender-specific comparisons with other therapies, would be of interest.
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