Women, war and trauma: a study description

The last few decades have seen a sharp increase in research into the psychological, psychiatric and social consequences of war. However the bulk of this research relates to male veterans and refugees. There is a serious dearth of literature on female civilians, particularly where the research is being performed in the country of trauma origin. This study aims to explore the psychosocial effects of war on women. One hundred and fifty female civilians participated in this study, conducted in the city of Sarajevo and surrounding refugee settlements in Bosnia. The subjects were divided into three groups: domestic women residing in Sarajevo during and after the war, displaced: women forced to leave their homes, and staying in refugee settlements, returness: women who have returned to Sarajevo from exile. Each woman was interviewed extensively by local psychiatrists. This interview contained the Harvard Trauma Scale for the screening of PTSD and Social Functioning, and the Hopkins Checklist for Anxiety and Depression. Both these tests have been revised, translated and validated for the Bosnian population. The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and the Lazarus Coping scale examine psychological aspects of self-esteem and coping. A questionnaire containing demographic information was devised for the purposes of this study.