ARQ Centrum’45 (en)

Introduction: If asylum applicants need to prove that they have been persecuted in their home country, expert judgment of the psychological and physical consequences of torture may support the judicial process. Expert medico-legal reports can be used to assess whether the medical complaints of the asylum seeker are consistent with their asylum account. It is unclear which factors influence medical expert judgement about the consistency between an asylum seeker’s symptoms and story, and to what extent expert medico-legal reports are associated with judicial outcomes.

The assessment of psychopathology among traumatized refugees: measurement invariance of the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire and the Hopkins Symptom Checklist-25 across five linguistic groups

Tim R. Winda , Niels van der Aaa , Simone de la Riea and Jeroen Knipscheera,b

a Department of Research, Arq Psychotrauma Expert Group, Diemen, the Netherlands;

b Department of Clinical Psychology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands

VOL. 8, 1321357 https://doi.org/10.1080/20008198.2017.1321357

Disturbed grief, operationalized as persistent complex bereavement disorder (PCBD), correlates with yet differs from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression symptoms. However, knowledge about temporal associations among these symptoms is limited. We aimed to enhance our understanding of the etiology of loss-related distress by examining temporal associations among PCBD, PTSD, and depression symptom levels. Dutch people (N = 172) who lost significant other(s) in a plane disaster completed questionnaires for PCBD, PTSD, and depression 11, 22, 31, and 42 months after the disaster.

In the article by Hengst et al in the January 2018 issue of The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, a column of unwanted numbers was published in Table 3. The corrected Table is being republished via this erratum.

In addition, the estimates were not visible in 2 decimals because Figure 2 was too small. The content has been enlarged and is being republished via this erratum.

The authors regret that “β” in the abstract of the published article was written as “β−”. The corrected abstract is as follows. The authors would like to apologize for any inconvenience caused. 

Abstract

Background: Bereavement can precipitate different forms of psychopathology, including prolonged grief disorder (PGD) and posttraumatic-stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. How these symptoms influence each other is unclear. The aim of this study was to examine the temporal relationship of symptoms of PGD and PTSD following bereavement.

Background: This study tested the hypotheses that (i) the relationship between a history of childhood abuse and severity of psychosis is mediated by loneliness; (ii) the relationship between loneliness and psychosis is mediated by within-person fluctuations in depressive and anxious feelings. Methods: Fifty-nine individuals with non-affective psychotic disorder rated the intensity of loneliness, positive symptoms, and depressive and anxious feelings during repeated moments in daily life (Experience Sampling Method).

Exposure to war and violence has major consequences for society at large, detrimental impact on people’s individual lives, and may also have intergenerational consequences. To gain more insight into these intergenerational consequences, research addressing the impact of the Holocaust on offspring is an important source of information. The aim of the current study was to systematically review the mechanisms of intergenerational consequences by summarizing characteristics in Holocaust survivors and their offspring suggested to impact the offspring’s mental health.

Objective: Exposure to potentially traumatic events (PTEs) has been identified as a risk factor for various psychological problems in adolescents generally and in young refugees. The aim of this study was to examine whether individual resilience (assessed as a personality characteristic) can protect adolescents in diverse contexts from negative effects of trauma exposure.

Traumatic loss involves the loss of loved ones in the context of potentially traumatizing circumstances and is a commonly reported traumatic event. It may give rise to disturbed grief, called prolonged grief disorder (PGD) in ICD-11 and persistent complex bereavement disorder (PCBD) in DMS-5, combined with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. The recent inclusion of grief disorders in both DSM-5 and ICD-11 have spurred research on grief-related psychopathology. This special issue on traumatic loss includes 10 articles and two letters.

Background: Narrative exposure therapy (NET) is a short-term psychological treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that has been investigated in various contexts among traumatized refugees and other trauma survivors. Sustained treatment results have been reported, but the methodological quality of the trials needs a more thorough examination.

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of NET for survivors of trauma, using a quality assessment, an updated meta-analysis, and a meta-regression analysis.