Mental Suffering in Protracted Political Conflict: Feeling Broken or Destroyed.

Purpose: This mixed-methods exploratory study identified and then developed and validated a quantitative measure of a new construct of mental suffering in the occupied Palestinian territory: feeling broken or destroyed.

Methods: Group interviews were conducted in 2011 with 68 Palestinians, most aged 30-40, in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip to discern local definitions of functioning. Interview participants articulated of a type of suffering not captured in existing mental health instruments used in regions of political conflict.

Political Imprisonment and Adult Functioning: A Life Event History Analysis of Palestinians.

Political imprisonment is a traumatic event, often accompanied by torture and deprivation. This study explores the association of political imprisonment between 1987 and 2011 with political, economic, community, psychological, physical, and family functioning in a population-based sample of Palestinian men ages 32-43 years (N = 884) derived from a dataset collected in 2011. Twenty-six percent (n = 233) had been politically imprisoned.

Politics drives human functioning, dignity, and quality of life.

Too little is known about human functioning amidst chronic adversity. We addressed that need by studying adult Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt), a population that has experienced longstanding economic and political hardships. Fourteen group interviews were conducted in February, 2010 in Arabic by local fieldworkers with 68 participants representing the main stratifications of Palestinian society: gender, region, refugee status, and political affiliation.

Human insecurity, chronic economic constraints and health in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Research on the effects of political conflict has focused predominantly on the association between violence exposure and psychological trauma. This paper expands that focus. We broaden the assessment of health beyond the conventional spotlight on trauma-related stress to include culturally derived measures of health, and we assess the association between a broad array of political and economic conditions and health.

Post-traumatic stress disorder and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder in Palestinian children affected by the war on Gaza.

The Gaza Strip has been badly affected by war and conflict over the past four decades. Palestinians are exposed to repeated incursions of the border areas, with many resulting casualties. At the end of December 2008, more than 230 Palestinians were killed and at least 770 were injured, including 100 in critical condition, after an Israeli airstrike.

Nature of torture, PTSD, and somatic symptoms among political ex-prisoners.

The authors examined how different types of torture methods are associated with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and somatic symptoms among political ex-prisoners. Participants were 275 Palestinian men who reported their experiences in detention and imprisonment, PTSD (the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire), and somatic symptoms. A principal component analysis revealed physical torture, psychological torture, sensory discomfort and deprivation, and beatings as dimensions of exposure to torture.

Exposure to war trauma and PTSD among parents and children in the Gaza strip.

Objective: Exposure to war trauma has been independently associated with posttraumatic stress (PTSD) and other emotional disorders in children and adults. The aim of this study was to establish the relationship between ongoing war traumatic experiences, PTSD and anxiety symptoms in children, accounting for their parents' equivalent mental health responses.

Methods: The study was conducted in the Gaza Strip, in areas under ongoing shelling and other acts of military violence.

Does war beget child aggression? Military violence, gender, age and aggressive behavior in two Palestinian samples.

We examined, first, the relations between children's exposure to military violence and their aggressive behavior and the role of age and gender in that relation in two Palestinian samples. Second, we tested parenting practices as a moderator of the relation between exposure to military violence and aggressive behavior, and third, whether exposure to military violence of different nature (direct victimization versus witnessing) has specific associations with different forms of aggression (reactive, proactive and aggression-enjoyment). Study I was conducted in a relatively calm military-political atmosphere in Palestine-Gaza, and included 640 children, aged 6-16 years whose parents (N=622) and teachers (N=457) provided reports.

Predictors of psychological distress and positive resources among Palestinian adolescents: trauma, child, and mothering characteristics.

Objective: The aim was to examine how traumatic and stressful events, responses to violence, child characteristics, and mothering quality, as measured in middle childhood predict psychological distress and positive resources in adolescence.

Method: The participants were 65 Palestinian adolescents (17+/-.85 years; 52% girls), who had been studied during the First Intifada (T1), during the Palestinian Authority rule (T2) and before the Second Al Aqsa Intifada (T3) in Gaza.

Prevalence and determinants of PTSD among Palestinian children exposed to military violence.

The prevalence and determinants of PTSD were assessed among 121 Palestinian children (6-16 years; 45% girls and 55% boys) living in the area of bombardment. The mothers (21-55 years) and the children themselves reported their exposure to military violence (being personally the target of violence or witnessing it towards others) and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorders (PTSD: intrusion, avoidance and hypervigilance). The results showed that 54% of the children suffered from severe, 33.