Rowena V. Cabigon
Centre for Victims of Organised Violence & Torture
East Timor

Pernille Due
Panum Institute
Denmark

June Pagaduan-Lopez
Psychosocial Trauma & Human Rights Programme
Philippines

Carlo Irwin A. Panello, Janet Rodenburg, Charissa Mia D. Salud
UP College of Medicine
Philippines

Community support for stressful trauma effects in post-conflict East Timor

Apoyo comunitario para los efectos estresantes del trauma en el Timor Oriental del post-conflicto

Violence and human rights violations are believed to have traumatised the majority of the East Timorese population. The focus of this study is to characterize the support provided by community resources and to identify needs requiring additional support.

Thirty East Timorese interviewers representing all 13 districts of East Timor were trained in interview techniques and basic psychosocial counselling. At least three villages in each district were sampled, securing representation of both assumed severely and less severely traumatised populations. In the selected villages, 1033 persons from randomly sampled households were interviewed about trauma, health, personal losses, and help-seeking behaviour.

Fifty-eight percent (58%) of the respondents had experienced torture themselves. Thirty-four percent (34%) of the respondents showed symptomatology of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The majority of the population consulted informal resources in the community - predominantly the close family (83%), friends (67%), neighbours (67%), and priests (68%). The vast majority (72-96%) of those who received community support found that the consultations helped them with respect to stressful effects of the trauma. Around 10% would have liked to consult with different community resources, whereas 15-20% did not feel a need to consult.

Three different health dimensions were assessed: Self-reported General Health Status, PTSD symptomatology, and Functional Ability (difficulties in performing daily tasks). Mutual predictive validity between the three dimensions was high, in particular poor Self-reported General Health Status was highly predictive of PTSD symptomatology and functional difficulties. Among those who did not consult but would have liked to, half reported a poor general health status, PTSD symptomatology, and functional difficulties. These proportions were around two times the proportions of bad health compared to those who consulted community resources. The results indicate that unattended health needs are mainly present among those who would like to have consulted community resources but did not.

Community resources were essential in coping with stressful effects of trauma in the ET population. The overall assessment of the informal consultations is positive, meaning consultations helped. In post-conflict rehabilitation, community support should be strengthened, and additional specialist services should be provided on top of community resources to attend to the more severely traumatised persons.