Torture, trauma, and posttraumatic symptoms in Syrian women asylum seekers in the Greek border camp of Idomeni

Abstract

Introduction: Experiencing traumatic events and torture due to war, the migratory process, and staying in confinement centers exposes refugees to a high risk of suffering psychological problems. The vulnerability of experiencing posttraumatic symptomatology is mediated not only by the traumatic experiences but also by the contextual and migratory factors at the time of assessment. The present study aimed to determine the quantity and intensity of posttraumatic symptoms in a sample of refugee women blocked at the Idomeni refugee camp (Greece) under eviction. Moreover, some qualitative data were gathered throughout the interviews. Method: The methodological approach was a mixed method where 23 Syrian and Kurdish women, aged 28.9 years (SD = 12.6), were interviewed through the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire (HTQ) in its Iraqi version. Results: The women experienced between 7-32 traumatic events (M = 19.47, SD = 6.68) and 4-16 torture events (M = 9.78, SD = 3.35). Re-experiencing was the most reported symptom (95.6%). A 78.26% showed posttraumatic symptoms that exceeded the cut-off point for diagnosis the Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) with the HTQ criteria and 91.30% with the DSM-IV criteria. On the other hand, qualitative data emphasized the importance of the fact that arriving and living in the camp in Idomeni severely shook the women´s beliefs. Conclusion: Despite the low correlation found between traumatic and torture events and the posttraumatic symptoms due to the ceiling effects of the results, women reported traumatic and torture events associated with war and the migratory process. The high scores could be explained by the stress associated with torture events, the eviction of the refugee camp, and the frustration of their expectations regarding their reception in Europe as refugees. The notion of torturing environments emerges as a plausible framework to study the link between mental health and European forced migration routes.