Trauma and Stress-Related Symptoms Among Yazidi Survivors of the 2014 ISIS Genocide in Iraq

There is a paucity of published research on the prevalence of specific traumatic events and disaster-related psychopathology in Yazidi survivors related to the 2014 ISIS genocide in Iraq.

The sample for this cross-sectional study was a large nationally-representative cohort of 488 adult Yazidi men and women who were members of the Duhok camps in Iraq. They were assessed 10 years after the ISIS attacks for their experience of various traumatic events and their association with posttraumatic stress, depression, and complicated grief (CG) symptoms related to the genocide. Participants completed the Life Events Checklist for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5) (LEC-5), the PTSD Checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5), the Hamilton Depression Scale, and the Inventory of Complicated Grief (ICG). Modified Poisson log-linear models provided prevalence ratios of posttraumatic stress symptoms by types of traumatic events and exposures and associations with the number of traumatic events.

The vast majority (94.67%) reported direct personal exposure to any traumatic event. Trauma prevalence by trauma type ranged from 6.4% for war/armed conflict-related events to 74.6% for sexual/physical assault by ISIS terrorists. Overall posttraumatic stress symptom threshold varied substantially across trauma types, being lowest for natural disaster (29/56, 4.21%) and highest for sexual assault (215/287, 31.3%), with 193/488, 39.4% exceeding PTSD threshold for any trauma. The proportions exceeding symptom thresholds for depression and CG were 28.9% and 66.6% respectively.

The extensive exposure to trauma by Yazidi people and the resulting psychological toll calls for a major community effort to prevent sexual and physical violence and provide desperately needed mental health services.