Prevalence of traumatic events and PTSD symptoms among secondary school students in Baghdad

BACKGROUND: People in Iraq have been more or less continually exposed to war for more than three decades. Studies with Iraqi participants report high prevalence rates of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and related problems. METHODS: The aim of this study is to measure the prevalence of traumatic events and to screen the prevalence of PTSD symptoms among Iraqi secondary school students. Four self-report scales were administered to 403 secondary school students, aged 16–19 (61% male and 31% female). These scales were Baghdad Trauma History Screen, the Scale of Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms (SPTSS), Social Support Scale, and Scale of Religious Coping. RESULTS: The results showed that 84% of participants experienced at least one traumatic event. Of these, 61% fully met the criteria for PTSD; 65% of the females and 58% of the males. PTSD symptoms were correlated with 20 positive religious coping but not with social support. CONCLUSIONS: It’s clear that traumatic events were speared widely among the participants and the result showed that the vast majority of participants were exposed to different types of traumatic events. In addition, many of the participants have met full PTSD criteria and others had partial PTSD.