Trauma experiences, posttraumatic stress, dissociation, and depression in Cambodian refugees

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: The authors' goal was to determine the levels of trauma and psychiatric symptoms in a randomly selected group of Cambodian refugees and to determine the relationship between the amount of trauma experienced and subsequent psychiatric symptoms. METHOD: Data on traumatic experiences and symptoms of posttraumatic stress, dissociation, depression, and anxiety were collected on 50 randomly selected Cambodian refugees who had resettled in the United States. RESULTS: Subjects experienced multiple and severe traumas and showed high levels of all symptoms measured. Forty-three (86%) of the subjects met DSM-III-R criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder, 48 (96%) had high dissociation scores, and 40 (80%) could be classified as suffering from clinical depression. Correlations between trauma scores and symptom scores and among symptom scores were moderate to large. CONCLUSIONS: These results indicate that a high proportion of Cambodian refugees who are not psychiatric patients suffer from severe psychiatric symptoms and that there is a relationship between the amount of trauma they experienced and the severity of these symptoms.