Mental disorders and the internal armed conflict in Guatemala

The Guatemalan society was exposed to an internal armed conflict during the period from 1962 to 1996. During these years, the civil society suffered multiple traumatic events. The objective of this study is to understand the psychological impact that the conflict had on the mental health of the Guatemalans.

A review of articles published between 1962 and 2004, in the databases Medline, Lilacs, Embase, Psiclit-Infon, Cochrane Library and Pilots was conducted. The articles that were selected found mental disorder prevalences in Guatemalans through standardized instruments.

Eight studies were found to demonstrate, in general, elevated prevalences for mental disorders in different population groups affected by the violence. For the depression ranges, the prevalence was between 38.8% and 41.8%; for anxiety symptoms intervals between 27.7% and 54.4 %; for sleep problems, 75 %, and for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) studies with low frequencies from 2% to 11.8 % and other studies that demonstrated higher prevalences from 32% to 52%.

These mental disorders prevalences can be interpreted as elevated when compared with population studies of persons not exposed to armed conflicts where the PTSD ranges generally go from 0.5% to 11.7%. This permits the inference that these high frequencies are probably related to traumatic experiences of the war in Guatemala and in exile.