In 2012, more that 58,000 refugees were resettled in the United States. A couple thousand of them came to Pennsylvania.
"Refugees come from places that tend to be difficult, I mean nobody chooses to be a refugee, people become refugees," said Marco Gemignani, who teaches psychology at Duquesne University and works with refugees at Catholic Charities Health Clinic.
"These are truly survivors of war or survivors of torture, so in that case we see a high frequency of post-traumatic stress disorder," Gemignani said, adding that PTSD cases are difficult to treat and at times also difficult to recognize.
Gemignani said different cultures present trauma or PTSD differently than many Americans. In the United States, he said, people tend to express themselves verbally, but PTSD can manifest itself in other ways in someone from Somalia or other countries.
"People may not talk about nightmares or memories, but they may tell us they have a strong headache," he said, "that they lost their appetite, that they have a strong pain in the neck or stomach problem."
Those sorts of questions — detailing physical symptoms — have now been incorporated into the state assessment physical providers fill out when refugees first arrive.
http://wesa.fm/post/translating-trauma-challenge-treating-refugees-ptsd
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