OBJECTIVE To explore which health care and other support services people exposed to traumatic events related to the war use, how helpful they perceive them in the course of their post-war adaptation and whether utilization and perceived usefulness depend on the mental health status of participants. METHODS A community sample of 3304 adults exposed to at least one war-related traumatic event w...

OBJECTIVE Frequent Emergency Department (ED) users are vulnerable individuals and discrimination is usually associated with increased vulnerability. The aim of this study was to investigate frequent ED users' perceptions of discrimination and to test whether they were associated with increased vulnerability. METHODS In total, 250 adult frequent ED users were interviewed in Lausanne University...

BACKGROUND The reasons for high use of primary care, and in particular the role of psychosocial factors, remain unclear. METHODS We identified and interviewed 236 frequent attenders and 420 normal users, matched by age and sex, of a public Health Centre in Granada, Spain. Users were questioned about mental health (GHQ-28), social support (Duke-UNC-11), family dysfunction (family APGAR) and he...

OBJECTIVE To assess physical and mental functional health status as associated with the severity of intimate partner violence (IPV) and perceived danger. METHODS Prospective cross-sectional survey of all patients aged 18-55 in an urban emergency department during a convenience sample of shifts. Instruments included the George Washington Universal Violence Prevention Screening protocol, admini...

BACKGROUND Common mental disorders (CMD) are a constellation of mental health conditions that include depression, anxiety, and other related nonpsychotic affective disorders. Qualitative explanatory models of mental health among reproductive-aged women in India reveal that distress is strongly associated with CMD. The relationship of perceived stress and CMD might be attenuated or exacerbated b...

OBJECTIVES This study examined a cognitive stress-moderation model that posits that the harmful effects of chronic stress are decreased in police officers who perceive high levels of physical fitness. It also determined whether the stress-buffering effect of perceived fitness is influenced by officers' self-reported sleep. METHODS A total of 460 police officers (n=116 females, n=344 males, me...

This study explored the usefulness of a generic health assessment tool SF-36 in measuring perceived health outcomes in a developing-country setting. The adapted Bangla version was administered in 10 villages of Matlab sub-district in Bangladesh during second half of 1999. Respondents included currently-married males and females selected randomly from households stratified according to their ass...

OBJECTIVE To examine differences in male and female veterans of Operations Enduring Freedom/Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF) period of service in taking prescription headache medication, and associations between taking prescription headache medication and mental health status, psychiatric symptoms, and rates of traumatic events. BACKGROUND Headaches are common among active service members and are asso...

OBJECTIVE This paper sought to examine which pre- and post-migration factors might be associated with changes in refugees' health status. METHODS Using linear regression, the associations between pre- and post-migration factors and changes in self-rated mental and physical health status were examined in 525 refugees from the 1998 Settlement Experiences of Refugees in Alberta study. RESULTS ...