IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v190y2017icp119-132.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Post-conflict struggles as networks of problems: A network analysis of trauma, daily stressors and psychological distress among Sri Lankan war survivors

Author

Listed:
  • Jayawickreme, Nuwan
  • Mootoo, Candace
  • Fountain, Christine
  • Rasmussen, Andrew
  • Jayawickreme, Eranda
  • Bertuccio, Rebecca F.

Abstract

A growing body of literature indicates that the mental distress experienced by survivors of war is a function of both experienced trauma and stressful life events. However, the majority of these studies are limited in that they 1) employ models of psychological distress that emphasize underlying latent constructs and do not allow researchers to examine the unique associations between particular symptoms and various stressors; and 2) use one or more measures that were not developed for that particular context and thus may exclude key traumas, stressful life events and symptoms of psychopathology. The current study addresses both these limitations by 1) using a novel conceptual model, network analysis, which assumes that symptoms covary with each other not because they stem from a latent construct, but rather because they represent meaningful relationships between the symptoms; and 2) employing a locally developed measure of experienced trauma, stressful life problems and symptoms of psychopathology. Over the course of 2009–2011, 337 survivors of the Sri Lankan civil war were administered the Penn-RESIST-Peradeniya War Problems Questionnaire (PRPWPQ). Network analysis revealed that symptoms of psychopathology, problems pertaining to lack of basic needs, and social problems were central to the network relative to experienced trauma and other types of problems. After controlling for shared associations, social problems in particular were the most central, significantly more so than traumatic events and family problems. Several particular traumatic events, stressful life events and symptoms of psychopathology that were central to the network were also identified. Discussion emphasizes the utility of such network models to researchers and practitioners determining how to spend limited resources in the most impactful way possible.

Suggested Citation

  • Jayawickreme, Nuwan & Mootoo, Candace & Fountain, Christine & Rasmussen, Andrew & Jayawickreme, Eranda & Bertuccio, Rebecca F., 2017. "Post-conflict struggles as networks of problems: A network analysis of trauma, daily stressors and psychological distress among Sri Lankan war survivors," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 119-132.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:190:y:2017:i:c:p:119-132
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.08.027
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953617305087
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.08.027?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. Epskamp, Sacha & Cramer, Angélique O.J. & Waldorp, Lourens J. & Schmittmann, Verena D. & Borsboom, Denny, 2012. "qgraph: Network Visualizations of Relationships in Psychometric Data," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 48(i04).
    2. Neuner, Frank, 2010. "Assisting war-torn populations - Should we prioritize reducing daily stressors to improve mental health? Comment on Miller and Rasmussen (2010)," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(8), pages 1381-1384, October.
    3. Chesmal Siriwardhana & Anushka Adikari & Gayani Pannala & Sisira Siribaddana & Melanie Abas & Athula Sumathipala & Robert Stewart, 2013. "Prolonged Internal Displacement and Common Mental Disorders in Sri Lanka: The COMRAID Study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(5), pages 1-8, May.
    4. Hinton, Devon E. & Nickerson, Angela & Bryant, Richard A., 2011. "Worry, worry attacks, and PTSD among Cambodian refugees: A path analysis investigation," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(11), pages 1817-1825, June.
    5. Alyssa Banford Witting & Jessica Lambert & Thulitha Wickrama & Sivaguru Thanigaseelan & Michael Merten, 2016. "War and disaster in Sri Lanka: Depression, family adjustment and health among women heading households," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 62(5), pages 425-433, August.
    6. Louis Guttman, 1968. "A general nonmetric technique for finding the smallest coordinate space for a configuration of points," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 33(4), pages 469-506, December.
    7. Miller, Kenneth E. & Rasmussen, Andrew, 2010. "War exposure, daily stressors, and mental health in conflict and post-conflict settings: Bridging the divide between trauma-focused and psychosocial frameworks," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 7-16, January.
    8. Rasmussen, Andrew & Keatley, Eva & Joscelyne, Amy, 2014. "Posttraumatic stress in emergency settings outside North America and Europe: A review of the emic literature," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 44-54.
    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. Nuwan Jayawickreme & Ehsan Atefi & Eranda Jayawickreme & Jiale Qin & Amir H. Gandomi, 2020. "Association Rule Learning Is an Easy and Efficient Method for Identifying Profiles of Traumas and Stressors that Predict Psychopathology in Disaster Survivors: The Example of Sri Lanka," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(8), pages 1-17, April.
    2. Ignacio Ramos-Vidal & Ilse Villamil & Alicia Uribe, 2019. "Underlying Dimensions of Social Cohesion in a Rural Community Affected by Wartime Violence in Colombia," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(2), pages 1-15, January.
    3. Wilson-Genderson, Maureen & Heid, Allison R. & Pruchno, Rachel, 2018. "Long-term effects of disaster on depressive symptoms: Type of exposure matters," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 217(C), pages 84-91.

    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. Massimiliano Bratti & Mariapia Mendola & Alfonso Miranda, 2015. "Hard to Forget: the Long-Lasting Impact of War on Mental Health," Development Working Papers 388, Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano, University of Milano.
    2. Duncan Pedersen & Hanna Kienzler & Jaswant Guzder, 2015. "Searching for Best Practices," SAGE Open, , vol. 5(4), pages 21582440156, November.
    3. Alyssa Banford Witting & Jessica Lambert & Thulitha Wickrama & Sivaguru Thanigaseelan & Michael Merten, 2016. "War and disaster in Sri Lanka: Depression, family adjustment and health among women heading households," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 62(5), pages 425-433, August.
    4. Barber, Brian K. & McNeely, Clea & Olsen, Joseph A. & Belli, Robert F. & Doty, Samuel Benjamin, 2016. "Long-term exposure to political violence: The particular injury of persistent humiliation," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 154-166.
    5. Georgia Mangion & Melanie Simmonds-Buckley & Stephen Kellett & Peter Taylor & Amy Degnan & Charlotte Humphrey & Kate Freshwater & Marisa Poggioli & Cristina Fiorani, 2022. "Modelling Identity Disturbance: A Network Analysis of the Personality Structure Questionnaire (PSQ)," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(21), pages 1-17, October.
    6. Samuel Shye, 2010. "The Motivation to Volunteer: A Systemic Quality of Life Theory," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 98(2), pages 183-200, September.
    7. Patrick Groenen & Rudolf Mathar & Willem Heiser, 1995. "The majorization approach to multidimensional scaling for Minkowski distances," Journal of Classification, Springer;The Classification Society, vol. 12(1), pages 3-19, March.
    8. Gupta, Vipin & Hanges, Paul J. & Dorfman, Peter, 2002. "Cultural clusters: methodology and findings," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 11-15, April.
    9. Kennon M. Sheldon & Evgeny N. Osin & Tamara O. Gordeeva & Dmitry D. Suchkov & Vlaidslav V. Bobrov & Elena I. Rasskazova & Oleg A. Sychev, 2015. "Evaluating the Dimensionality of the Relative Autonomy Continuum in Us and Russian Samples," HSE Working papers WP BRP 48/PSY/2015, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    10. Yoshio Takane & Forrest Young & Jan Leeuw, 1977. "Nonmetric individual differences multidimensional scaling: An alternating least squares method with optimal scaling features," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 42(1), pages 7-67, March.
    11. Denny Borsboom, 2022. "Possible Futures for Network Psychometrics," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 87(1), pages 253-265, March.
    12. Emilio Viano, 1973. "The styles of management inventory: A methodological analysis of a training and research instrument," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 91-106, March.
    13. Zhou, Jianhua & Zhang, Lulu & Gong, Xue, 2023. "Longitudinal network relations between symptoms of problematic internet game use and internalizing and externalizing problems among Chinese early adolescents," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 333(C).
    14. Kathleen Ford & Aree Jampaklay & Aphichat Chamatrithirong, 2022. "Psychiatric symptoms among migrants to Malaysia from the southernmost provinces of Thailand," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 68(3), pages 533-540, May.
    15. Eggerman, Mark & Panter-Brick, Catherine, 2010. "Suffering, hope, and entrapment: Resilience and cultural values in Afghanistan," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 71-83, July.
    16. Willem Heiser, 1991. "A generalized majorization method for least souares multidimensional scaling of pseudodistances that may be negative," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 56(1), pages 7-27, March.
    17. George K. Jarvis, 1974. "Establishing Critical Turning-Points in Temporal Variation," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 2(4), pages 455-484, May.
    18. Cees H. Elzinga & Matthias Studer, 2019. "Normalization of Distance and Similarity in Sequence Analysis," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 48(4), pages 877-904, November.
    19. Mihail Halachev & Viktoria-Eleni Gountouna & Alison Meynert & Gannie Tzoneva & Alan R. Shuldiner & Colin A. Semple & James F. Wilson, 2024. "Regionally enriched rare deleterious exonic variants in the UK and Ireland," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-14, December.
    20. Mark Groves, 1992. "Beyond spatial representation," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 49-59, February.

    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:190:y:2017:i:c:p:119-132. 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.