General psychopathology, traumatic experiences and symptoms congruent with post-traumatic stress disorder among primary school children living in Şanlıurfa county, Suruc district

Objectives: The Syrian Civil War forced millions into asylum in neighboring countries. Refugees/ asylum seekers have elevated risk for psychopathology with the most important being post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Subjective experiences and symptoms of the hosting populations which have also experienced similar traumas have received relatively little attention up to now. We aimed to evaluate the effects of Syrian Civil War in terms of psychopathology, traumatic experiences and PTSD on Turkish primary school students living in Suruç which is on the border with Syria and hosts a large population of asylum seekers. Method: Two randomly selected schools operating in the district were included in the study. Sociodemographic Data forms, Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), parental and teacher forms of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, Children's Post-traumatic Reaction Index (CPRI) were used for evaluations. Data were analyzed with SPSS 23.0. Predictors of clinically significant subjective PTSD symptoms were evaluated with binary logistic regression. P was set at 0.05 (two tailed). Results: Most common traumatic experiences via parental report were witnessing explosions (% 26.9), witnessing injuries of extended family/ relatives (% 21.8) and witnessing deaths of acquaintances (% 17.9). Life- time traumatic events and life- time self-injurious behavior in children via parental report were % 26.9 and % 19.9; respectively. Of 156 students (% 53.2 % male) with a mean age of 8.8 years (S.D.= 1.3), % 13.5 obtained externalizing scores, % 11.0 obtained internalizing scores and % 13.5 obtained total scores in clinical range of CBCL. % 98.7 reported PTSD symptoms in moderate and above severity in CPRI. Most common traumatic experiences reported by children included hearing explosions/ gunshots (%17.3), damage to residences (% 17.3), and witnessing deaths of extended family/ acquaintances (% 12.8). Female gender (p=0.00), witnessing loss of family members/ acquaintances in Syrian Civil War (p=0.01) and clinically significant PTSD symptoms in CPRI were related in bivariate analyses although only female gender remained as a predictor in logistic regression. Conclusion: Children in communities hosting Syrian refugees/ asylum seekers may also have elevated symptoms of PTSD and female gender may be a risk factor for those symptoms. Keywords: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms in Children, War trauma, The Strengths And Difficulties Questionnaire