IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v114y2014icp121-128.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Understanding resilience in armed conflict: Social resources and mental health of children in Burundi

Author

Listed:
  • Hall, Brian J.
  • Tol, Wietse A.
  • Jordans, Mark J.D.
  • Bass, Judith
  • de Jong, Joop T.V.M.

Abstract

Little is known about the role of cognitive social capital among war-affected youth in low- and middle-income countries. We examined the longitudinal association between cognitive social capital and mental health (depression and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms), functioning, and received social support of children in Burundi. Data were obtained from face-to-face interviews with 176 children over three measurement occasions over the span of 4-months. Cognitive social capital measured the degree to which children believed their community was trustworthy and cohesive. Mental health measures included the Depression Self-Rating Scale (DSRS) (Birleson, 1981), the Child Posttraumatic Symptom Scale (Foa et al., 2001), and a locally constructed scale of functional impairment. Children reported received social support by listing whether they received different types of social support from self-selected key individuals. Cross-lagged path analytic modeling evaluated relationships between cognitive social capital, symptoms and received support separately over baseline (T1), 6-week follow-up (T2), and 4-month follow-up (T3). Each concept was treated and analyzed as a continuous score using manifest indicators. Significant associations between study variables were unidirectional. Cognitive social capital was associated with decreased depression between T1 and T2 (B = −.22, p < .001) and T2 and T3 (β = −.25, p < .001), and with functional impairment between T1 and T2 (β = −.15, p = .005) and T2 and T3 (β = −.14, p = .005); no association was found for PTSD symptoms at either time point. Cognitive social capital was associated with increased social support between T1 and T2 (β = .16, p = .002) and T2 and T3 (β = .16, p = .002). In this longitudinal study, cognitive social capital was related to a declining trajectory of children's mental health problems and increases in social support. Interventions that improve community relations in war-affected communities may alter the trajectories of resource loss and gain with conflict-affected children.

Suggested Citation

  • Hall, Brian J. & Tol, Wietse A. & Jordans, Mark J.D. & Bass, Judith & de Jong, Joop T.V.M., 2014. "Understanding resilience in armed conflict: Social resources and mental health of children in Burundi," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 121-128.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:114:y:2014:i:c:p:121-128
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.05.042
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953614003360
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.05.042?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hall, B.J. & Bolton, P.A. & Annan, J. & Kaysen, D. & Robinette, K. & Cetinoglu, T. & Wachter, K. & Bass, J.K., 2014. "The effect of cognitive therapy on structural social capital: Results from a randomized controlled trial among sexual violence survivors in the democratic republic of the Congo," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 104(9), pages 1680-1686.
    2. Unknown, 2013. "Editorial Introduction," African Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, African Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 8(3), pages 1-2, September.
    3. De Silva, Mary J & Harpham, Trudy & Tuan, Tran & Bartolini, Rosario & Penny, Mary E & Huttly, Sharon R, 2006. "Psychometric and cognitive validation of a social capital measurement tool in Peru and Vietnam," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(4), pages 941-953, February.
    4. Batniji, Rajaie & Van Ommeren, Mark & Saraceno, Benedetto, 2006. "Mental and social health in disasters: Relating qualitative social science research and the Sphere standard," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(8), pages 1853-1864, April.
    5. Hobfoll, Stevan E. & Mancini, Anthony D. & Hall, Brian J. & Canetti, Daphna & Bonanno, George A., 2011. "The limits of resilience: Distress following chronic political violence among Palestinians," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(8), pages 1400-1408, April.
    6. Ledyard Tucker & Charles Lewis, 1973. "A reliability coefficient for maximum likelihood factor analysis," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 38(1), pages 1-10, March.
    7. Betancourt, Theresa Stichick & Meyers-Ohki, Sarah & Stulac, Sara N. & Elizabeth Barrera, Amy & Mushashi, Christina & Beardslee, William R., 2011. "Nothing can defeat combined hands (Abashize hamwe ntakibananira): Protective processes and resilience in Rwandan children and families affected by HIV/AIDS," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 73(5), pages 693-701, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Adjaye-Gbewonyo, Kafui & Kawachi, Ichiro & Subramanian, S.V. & Avendano, Mauricio, 2018. "High social trust associated with increased depressive symptoms in a longitudinal South African sample," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 127-135.
    2. Tom Hendriks & Tobi Graafsma & Aabidien Hassankhan & Ernst Bohlmeijer & Joop de Jong, 2018. "Strengths and virtues and the development of resilience: A qualitative study in Suriname during a time of economic crisis," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 64(2), pages 180-188, March.
    3. Lindström, Martin & Giordano, Giuseppe N., 2016. "The 2008 financial crisis: Changes in social capital and its association with psychological wellbeing in the United Kingdom – A panel study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 71-80.
    4. Mikael G. Ahlborg & Maria Nyholm & Jens M. Nygren & Petra Svedberg, 2022. "Current Conceptualization and Operationalization of Adolescents’ Social Capital: A Systematic Review of Self-Reported Instruments," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(23), pages 1-25, November.
    5. Jorge Moya & María Goenechea, 2022. "An Approach to the Unified Conceptualization, Definition, and Characterization of Social Resilience," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(9), pages 1-15, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mark Shevlin & David Boyda & James Houston & Jamie Murphy, 2015. "Measurement of the psychosis continuum: Modelling the frequency and distress of subclinical psychotic experiences," Psychosis, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(2), pages 108-118, April.
    2. E. Huebner & Rich Gilman & James Laughlin, 1999. "A Multimethod Investigation of the Multidimensionality of Children's Well-Being Reports: Discriminant Validity of Life Satisfaction and Self-Esteem," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 46(1), pages 1-22, January.
    3. Evangeline I. Chirayil & Claire L. Thompson & Sue Burney, 2014. "Predicting Human Papilloma Virus Vaccination and Pap Smear Screening Intentions Among Young Singaporean Women Using the Theory of Planned Behavior," SAGE Open, , vol. 4(4), pages 21582440145, October.
    4. Bach Quang Ho & Yuki Inoue, 2020. "Driving Network Externalities in Education for Sustainable Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-16, October.
    5. Zhenhui (Jack) Jiang & Cheng Suang Heng & Ben C. F. Choi, 2013. "Research Note —Privacy Concerns and Privacy-Protective Behavior in Synchronous Online Social Interactions," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 24(3), pages 579-595, September.
    6. Lau, Patricia Yin Yin & Tong, Jane L.Y. Terpstra & Lien, Bella Ya-Hui & Hsu, Yen-Chen & Chong, Chooi Ling, 2017. "Ethical work climate, employee commitment and proactive customer service performance: Test of the mediating effects of organizational politics," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 20-26.
    7. Zi Jia Ng & Eugene Scott Huebner & Alberto Maydeu-Olivares & Kimberly Joy Hills, 2018. "Confirmatory Factor Analytic Structure and Measurement Invariance of the Brief Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale (BMSLSS) in a Longitudinal Sample of Adolescents," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 11(4), pages 1237-1247, August.
    8. Cesar Ivan Aviles Gonzalez & Maura Galletta & Paola Melis & Paolo Contu & Jean Watson & Gabriele Finco & Maria Francisca Jimenez Herrera, 2019. "Cultural adaptation and psychometric validation of the Caring Efficacy scale in a sample of Italian nurses," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(5), pages 1-11, May.
    9. Raymond Loi & Hang-Yue Ngo, 2010. "Mobility norms, risk aversion, and career satisfaction of Chinese employees," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 237-255, June.
    10. Agampodi, Thilini Chanchala & Agampodi, Suneth Buddhika & Glozier, Nicholas & Siribaddana, Sisira, 2015. "Measurement of social capital in relation to health in low and middle income countries (LMIC): A systematic review," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 95-104.
    11. Tahia Anan Dhira & Mahir A Rahman & Abdur Razzaque Sarker & Jeenat Mehareen, 2021. "Validity and reliability of the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) among university students of Bangladesh," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(12), pages 1-16, December.
    12. Anne Mäkikangas & Wilmar Schaufeli & Esko Leskinen & Ulla Kinnunen & Katriina Hyvönen & Taru Feldt, 2016. "Long-Term Development of Employee Well-Being: A Latent Transition Approach," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 17(6), pages 2325-2345, December.
    13. Dharm Dev Bhatta & Muddassar Sarfraz & Larisa Ivascu & Marius Pislaru, 2023. "The Nexus of Corporate Affinity for Technology and Firm Sustainable Performance in the Era of Digitalization: A Mediated Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-20, June.
    14. Wu, Pei-Hsun & Kao, Danny Tengti, 2011. "Goal orientation and variety seeking behavior: The role of decision task," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 65-72, February.
    15. Richard Dembo & Rhissa Briones-Robinson & Jennifer Wareham & Ken C. Winters & Rocío Ungaro & James Schmeidler, 2014. "Brief Intervention Impact on Truant Youth Attitudes to School and School Behavior Problems: A Longitudinal Study," Journal of Educational and Developmental Psychology, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 4(1), pages 163-163, May.
    16. Sarah R Lowe & Ethan J Raker & Mary C Waters & Jean E Rhodes, 2020. "Predisaster predictors of posttraumatic stress symptom trajectories: An analysis of low-income women in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(10), pages 1-19, October.
    17. Gallagher, H. Colin & Block, Karen & Gibbs, Lisa & Forbes, David & Lusher, Dean & Molyneaux, Robyn & Richardson, John & Pattison, Philippa & MacDougall, Colin & Bryant, Richard A., 2019. "The effect of group involvement on post-disaster mental health: A longitudinal multilevel analysis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 220(C), pages 167-175.
    18. Caterina Primi & Monica Giuli & Emanuele Baroni & Vanessa Zurkirch & Matteo Galanti & Laura Belloni & Costanza Gori & Maria Anna Donati, 2023. "The Individual- and Organization-Related Stressors in Pandemic Scale for Healthcare Workers (IOSPS-HW): Development and Psychometric Properties of a New Instrument to Assess Individual and Organizatio," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(5), pages 1-17, February.
    19. Paulo Pereira & Fernando Santos & Daniel A. Marinho, 2024. "Validation of the Sport Motivation Scale-II: Implications for the Portuguese Youth Sport System," SAGE Open, , vol. 14(1), pages 21582440231, January.
    20. Thomas Schofield & Melissa Merrick & Chia-Feng Chen, 2016. "Reciprocal Associations between Neighborhood Context and Parent Investments: Selection Effects in Two Longitudinal Samples," Working Papers wp16-08-ff, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing..

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:114:y:2014:i:c:p:121-128. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.