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. 2017 Oct 4;14(10):1175.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph14101175.

Development and Preliminary Validation of Refugee Trauma History Checklist (RTHC)-A Brief Checklist for Survey Studies

Erika Sigvardsdotter  1 , Henrik Nilsson  2   3   4 , Andreas Malm  5   6   7 , Petter Tinghög  8   9 , Maria Gottvall  10   11   12 , Marjan Vaez  13 , Fredrik Saboonchi  14   15
Affiliations

Development and Preliminary Validation of Refugee Trauma History Checklist (RTHC)-A Brief Checklist for Survey Studies

Erika Sigvardsdotter et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

A high proportion of refugees have been subjected to potentially traumatic experiences (PTEs), including torture. PTEs, and torture in particular, are powerful predictors of mental ill health. This paper reports the development and preliminary validation of a brief refugee trauma checklist applicable for survey studies.

Methods: A pool of 232 items was generated based on pre-existing instruments. Conceptualization, item selection and item refinement was conducted based on existing literature and in collaboration with experts. Ten cognitive interviews using a Think Aloud Protocol (TAP) were performed in a clinical setting, and field testing of the proposed checklist was performed in a total sample of n = 137 asylum seekers from Syria.

Results: The proposed refugee trauma history checklist (RTHC) consists of 2 × 8 items, concerning PTEs that occurred before and during the respondents' flight, respectively. Results show low item non-response and adequate psychometric properties Conclusion: RTHC is a usable tool for providing self-report data on refugee trauma history surveys of community samples. The core set of included events can be augmented and slight modifications can be applied to RTHC for use also in other refugee populations and settings.

Keywords: population study; refugees; self-report instrument; trauma; trauma checklist.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The founding sponsors had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, and in the decision to publish the results.

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