Exposure to War-Related Traumata among Arab Children and Adolescents: A Review

Objective: The Arab world has witnessed a series of armed conflicts with severe consequences on political, economic and social levels still unfolding. A number of publications have looked closer at the rates of war exposure among Arab children and adolescents. Method: A literature review on war exposure during childhood/adolescence was conducted for all countries in the Arab world up to September 15, 2014 using the search engines PubMed, and PsycINFO. Results: A total of 42 articles were included in this review: two about Iraq, four about Kuwait, five about Lebanon, 26 about Palestine, three about Sudan, one from Somalia and one from Syria. The majority of the studies were based on specific community samples (general, students, refugees, or residing in camps) and a minority from primary health care centers. The studies discuss a variety of traumatizing war events that were either ”general” (such as witnessing injured people, and the destruction of homes) or “personal”(such as being tortured, or subjected to different forms of violence). Conclusion: War traumata tend to occur together and singling out one trauma and studying its mental health outcome could be misleading.