The Harvard trauma questionnaire: adapting a cross-cultural instrument for measuring torture, trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder in Iraqi refugees.
BACKGROUND
Mental health assessments in post-conflict zones have relied heavily on Western psychiatric scales. Yet, a strict dependence on the paradigms of Western psychiatry risks inappropriately prioritizing syndromes, such as PTSD, which, however important, are eclipsed by local concerns.


RESULTS
In Dearborn, Michigan, home to the largest population of Iraqi refugees in the United States, 60 Iraqi refugee life stories were collected in order to adapt the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire (HTQ) to the Iraqi context.


CONCLUSIONS
The methodology described proved to be a useful approach to developing a trauma measure that is culturally grounded in a multi-dimensional model of mental health.
Shoeb
Marwa
M
University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, 94143, USA. marwa.shoeb@ucsf.edu
Weinstein
Harvey
H
Mollica
Richard
R
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001294:Attitude to Health / Q000208:ethnology*; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007493:Iraq / Q000208:ethnology; D008297:Male; D008824:Michigan; D008875:Middle Aged; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D012036:Refugees / Q000523:psychology*; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000208:ethnology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014104:Torture / Q000523:psychology*; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000523:psychology*