PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

Abstract: From the first war in Mesopotamia to the latest ongoing war in Ukraine, war has constantly threatened nations' economic and social fabric. During the last decade, Middle East and North African countries suffered several armed conflicts and instability, including the Arab Spring and the emergence of Daesh. As a result, millions of civilian people were displaced from their homes. The present dissertation therefore purposes to study the experiences of the people forcibly displaced from Syria and Iraq as the two populations most affected by the civil war and armed conflict. The dissertation consists of three studies. All three studies were conducted among displaced Iraqi and Syrian people living in refugee camps in the Kurdistan region of Iraq (KRI). The first study aimed to estimate the psychological consequences of Syrian refugees’ war-related experiences. The results showed that all participants (98.5%) had experienced at least one traumatic event, and 86.3 per cent had experienced three or more traumatic event types. The prevalence rates of probable post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression were about 60%. A higher number of traumatic events, female gender, older age, more extended period in camps, and growing up in cities were among the significant risk factors for more severe mental disorders. In the second study, among a large sample of displaced Syrian and Iraqi couples, the results showed that trauma-related symptoms in a partner were not only affected by their own traumatic events but also by their partner's trauma. The findings demonstrated the interdependence of trauma-related symptoms within dyads in a dual-trauma context. Next, emphasizing on the stability of psychological consequences of the civil war, the results of the third study among Syrian refugees showed no overall change in PTSD and depression symptoms over the 18-month follow-up. The participants even reported new adversities and traumatic events between the two interviews, significantly predicting increasing trauma-related symptoms. To sum up, this cumulative dissertation documents that the mental health of the war-affected population from Iraq and Syria is at high risk. The war-trauma sequelae are found to burden mental health at both the individual level and in the family context. Moreover, the post-conflict environment in Iraq seems not to help in recovering from the psychopathological disorder and starting a new life. All this suggests the urgent application of a pragmatic approach to rehabilitating these affected individuals at the local and global levels.