CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 698Migration, Health and TraumaMigration, Identity, and HealthPosttraumatic Stress Disorder Research

Measuring Trauma and Health Status in Refugees: A Critical Review

Hollifield, Michael, Warner, Teddy D., Lian, Nityamo, Krakow, Barry, Jenkins, Janis H., Kesler, James, Stevenson, Jayne, Westermeyer, Joseph·2002·JAMA
DOI 10.1001/jama.288.5.611
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Context Refugees experience multiple traumatic events and have significant associated health problems, but data about refugee trauma and health status are often conflicting and difficult to interpret.Objectives To assess the characteristics of the literature on refugee trauma and health, to identify and evaluate instruments used to measure refugee trauma and health status, and to recommend improvements.Data sources MEDLINE, PsychInfo, Health and PsychoSocial Instruments, CINAHL, and Cochrane Systematic Reviews (searched through OVID from the inception of each database to October 2001), and the New Mexico Refugee Project database.Study selection Key terms and combination operators were applied to identify English-language publications evaluating measurement of refugee trauma and/or health status.Data extraction Information extracted for each article included author; year of publication; primary focus; type (empirical, review, or descriptive); and type/name and properties of instrument(s) included. Articles were excluded from further analyses if they were review or descriptive, were not primarily about refugee health status or trauma, or were only about infectious diseases. Instruments were then evaluated according to 5 criteria (purpose, construct definition, design, developmental process, reliability and validity) as described in the published literature.Data synthesis Of 394 publications identified, 183 were included for further analyses of their characteristics; 91 (49.7%) included quantitative data but did not evaluate measurement properties of instruments used in refugee research, 78 (42.6%) reported on statistical relationships between measures (presuming validity), and 14 (7.7%) were only about statistical properties of instruments. In these 183 publications, 125 different instruments were used; of these, 12 were developed in refugee research. None of these instruments fully met all 5 evaluation criteria, 3 met 4 criteria, and 5 met only 1 of the criteria. Another 8 standard instruments were designed and developed in nonrefugee populations but adapted for use in refugee research; of these, 2 met all 5 criteria and 6 met 4 criteria.Conclusions The majority of articles about refugee trauma or health are either descriptive or include quantitative data from instruments that have limited or untested validity and reliability in refugees. Primary limitations to accurate measurement in refugee research are the lack of theoretical bases to instruments and inattention to using and reporting sound measurement principles.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1001/jama.288.5.611

Cites

118 of 118 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

1 of the 119 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Hollifield, M., Warner, T. D., Lian, N., Krakow, B., Jenkins, J. H., Kesler, J., Stevenson, J., & Westermeyer, J.
Affiliations
University of New Mexico (US)
ORCID
Venue
JAMA
Publisher
American Medical Association (AMA)
Published
2002-08-07
Volume
288
Issue
5
Pages
611
ISSN
  • 0002-9955 (ISSN-L)
  • 0098-7484
DOI
10.1001/jama.288.5.611
OpenAlex
W132194030
Cited by
60
References
119
Citations by year
2024: 1 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 3 · 2015: 5 · 2014: 9 · 2013: 2 · 2012: 3
FWCI
3.10
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
JAMA (publishedVersion)
Funders
National Institute of Mental Health (R01 MH 59574)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Migration, Health and Trauma
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Migration, Identity, and Health
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research
Keywords
refugees, trauma measurement, health status, psychological trauma, refugee health, health assessment instruments

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review