Citation

Hollifield M, Warner TD, Krakow B, Jenkins J, Westermeyer J. J. Nerv. Ment. Dis. 2009; 197(2): 117-125.

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

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, Lippincott Williams and Wilkins)

DOI

10.1097/NMD.0b013e31819642dc

PMID

19214047

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.

Language: en