title: The range of symptoms in refugees of war: the New Mexico Refugee Symptom Checklist-121.
abstract: The range of symptoms experienced by refugees of war has not been empirically assessed. The New Mexico Refugee Symptom Checklist-121 (NMRSCL-121) was developed utilizing established guidelines and evaluated for its psychometric properties. Community-dwelling Kurdish and Vietnamese refugees reported 48 (SD = 31) persistent and bothersome somatic and psychological symptoms on the NMRSCL-121. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability for the total scale and for most subscales were acceptable, and construct and concurrent validity for the NMRSCL-121 data was shown. There were modest ethnic group differences on symptom severity and psychometric properties of NMRSCL-121 subscales. The NMRSCL-121 produces reliable and valid assessments of a wide range of symptoms in 2 broad community samples of displaced adult refugees.
authors.affiliation: The Behavioral Health Research Center of the Southwest, a Center of Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87202, USA. mhollifield@bhrcs.org
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hollifield
authors.forename: Teddy D
authors.initials: TD
authors.lastname: Warner
authors.forename: Barry
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Krakow
authors.forename: Janis
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jenkins
authors.forename: Joseph
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Westermeyer
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009516:New Mexico; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012036:Refugees / Q000523:psychology*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012737:Sex Factors; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology; D014104:Torture / Q000523:psychology; D014857:Warfare; D055815:Young Adult