War and Mental Health of Palestinian Children

War and Mental Health of Palestinian Children and Adolescents 1166598 Governors State University Amina Dahleh Psychology 2102 Spring 2018 War and Mental Health of Palestinian Children and Adolescents The active war that has been occurring in Palestine has been the cause of trauma and mental disorders for most Palestinian adolescent and children. Most individuals who experience such happenings are often affected physically, socially, emotionally and psychologically (Shehadeh, Loots, Vanderfaeillie & Derlyun, 2015). Although trauma may be caused by the occurrence of natural calamities such as tsunamis and earthquakes, human instigated disasters such as wars can also lead to trauma. The effects of war across the Palestinian nation have greatly affected children and adolescents living in areas such as the Gaza Strip (UNICEF, 2011). The war between Israel and Palestine has been ongoing since a century ago due to the land conflict between the two nations (Kelman & Fisher, 2017). As a result, a large number of Palestinians have been detained, among them parents of children between the ages of 11-18 years. The detention of Palestinian parents has greatly affected the psychological well-being of the children and adolescents. In most cases, adolescents develop traumatic stress as well as mental issues after witnessing the detention process or after the death of their parents because of the imprisonment. Although war and imprisonment of parents are known to have an impact on the mental health of adolescents and children, the level of effect is not fully understood. This brings the question of how war and parent imprisonments led to trauma and mental disorders among the Palestinian children and adolescents. Most children and adolescents in Palestine suffer from trauma and mental disorders mainly because of the war experiences and the imprisonment of parents, which exposes the children to severe external and internal violence (Thabet & Vostanis, 2015). To determine whether the imprisonment had any effect on the well-being of the children, 79 Palestinian children from families whose fathers had been imprisoned and 99 children from families that had no imprisoned family member were studied (Shehadeh et al., 2015). The mothers of the children filled out a questionnaire that was cross-culturally validated and which had questions relating to the well-being of their children. Researchers found that the children whose fathers were imprisoned showed high signs of mental disorders and traumatic stress. The traumatic stress and mental problems were brought about by the imprisonment of the fathers as well as the witnessing of the fathers capturing (Shehadeh et al., 2015). The study clearly discussed the traumatic experiences that children face in the case of a parent imprisonment. A majority of children and adolescents whose fathers have been captured also tend to feel ashamed and embarrassed. Eventually, they develop antisocial behavior and violence. However, the experiment picked out a small number of children as a sample for the study since there are several factors to consider. These factors include reasons why the parent was detained, the living standards of the family since some families might reside in urban areas and others in rural areas, and gender. Gender can also be a determining factor on the level of impact of the parent’s detention on the child’s well-being, however, Shehadeh et al. (2015) found no relationship between gender and the impacts of the father’s detention. A similar study conducted along the Gaza Strip by Thabet and Vostanis (2015) was aimed at determining the effects of war trauma on Palestinian adolescent’s mental health. The Gaza Strip is a narrow piece of land that borders the Mediterranean Sea. The area is reported to have a short life expectancy, low standards of living, family overcrowding and high rates of unemployment (Thabet & Vostanis, 2015). The experiment involved sampling 449 children who were affected by the Gaza Strip war that took place from 2008 to 2009. The children were aged between 7-18 years old and lived in different communities within the Gaza Strip. The collection of data was done by filling out questionnaires as well as collecting sociodemographic information from the parents of affected children (Thabet & Vostanis, 2015). In addition, the team took measurements of depression, traumatic stress, PTSD and anxiety from the children. According to the results of the experiment, 90.4% of children were exposed to traumatic events by watching mutilated and injured Palestine bodies on television during the war (Thabet & Vostanis, 2015). Additionally, 100 children also displayed depressive symptoms while 89 children had anxiety problems (Thabet & Vostanis, 2015). Factors such as financial problems, gender and lack of social support greatly influenced the level of effects that the war had on the well-being of the children. Children who came from poor fa...