Posttraumatic stress among children in Kurdistan.
OBJECTIVE
To identify a posttraumatic stress disorder profile for the Child Behaviour Checklist.


METHODS
Checklist item scores for 806 school-aged children in Iraqi Kurdistan (201 randomly selected from the general population, 241 orphans, 199 primary medical care visitors and 165 hospital in-patients) were analysed against the Posttraumatic Stress Symptom Scale for Children (PTSS-C) scores, estimating not only stress diagnoses, but also nonstress-related, child-specific posttraumatic symptoms.


RESULTS
Twenty checklist items, which revealed significant correlations with the stress diagnoses, formed the checklist-stress profile with acceptable reliability and validity, and significant correlation to the PTSS-C estimates.


CONCLUSIONS
A child-specific stress profile for the checklist is recommended for use as a screening instrument.
Department of Child Mental Health, College of Medicine, University of Dohuk, Kurdistan Region, Iraq. abdulbaghi.ahmad@bupinst.uu.se.Sweden
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Ahmad
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002652:Child Behavior; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007493:Iraq / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000523:psychology; D014857:Warfare