To verify the association of various risk factors with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in adults among Internally Displaced Persons of Bajour and Swat.Design: Case Control study

Conducted on adult males and females among internally displaced persons, selected from the IDPs Camp in Peshawer and the IDPs visiting Psychiatric setting at Hayatabad Medical Complex, Peshawer from 1st of May to 15th of June, 2009.

Cases selected among the respondents through a screening questionnaire, suffering from PTSD. The controls were those respondents which screened out negative from the questionnaire for PTSD but were from the same camp. A total of 208 cases & equal number of controls were enrolled in the study. The statistical analysis was done in a stepwise manner (Uni-variate analysis, bi variate analysis, Logistic regression) using SPSS version 17.

The results show that the factors significantly associated with PTSD were Exposure to Injury (OR=19.181, 95% CI=5.740-22.797, p=0.000), Witnessing Death (OR=21.113, 95% CI=5.550-19.826, P=0.000), Hopelessness (OR=26.918, 95% CI= 3.403-13.101, p=0.000), Torture (OR= 5.008, 95% CI=1.795-3.962, p=0.009) and Loss of relative (OR=3.934, 95% CI=1.077-4.893, p=0.008).

The Posttraumatic stress disorder is highly prevalent in the vulnerable populations and various determinants are responsible for the morbidity associated with it. The degree that risk factors function to determine both the development and recovery from trauma, it is plausible that targeting risk factors may help both in the treatment of PTSD and in preventing recurrences of PTSD over time.