Citation

Hasanovic M. Acta Med. Acad. 2011; 40(1): 45-66.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Akademija nauka i umjetnosti Bosne i Hercegovine)

DOI

10.5644/ama.v40i1.102

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Research into the psychosocial consequences of war and political violence on children's and adolescent's developmental well being has shown a steady increase over the last decades. Numerous studies, from differing cultures in different war zones around the world, have documented the effect on children of exposure to war atrocities. The war inBosnia and Herzegovina (BH) 1992-1995, at the end of 20th century found the citizens of BH and the world mental health professionals and scientists unprepared to deal with the adverse consequences for the entire BH population and especially for its most vulnerable part, children and adolescents, to be able to take adequate measures of sufficient mental health care to prevent devastating consequences of severe multiple traumas. Only a few research studies were done during and after this war in BH, the United States, Sweden, Norway, the UK and Germany focusing on the relationship between war trauma, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, suicidal thoughts, acculturation, repatriation, poverty, behavioral problems, school adjustment, relational problems of children and their mothers after deployment of war PTSD veterans and war prisoners, and treatment of psychological consequences in examined children and adolescents from BH. The major part of this paper reviewed available literature on Medline that reported national and international studies which investigated the psychological consequences of war on BH children and adolescents and several papers about children and adolescents from Srebrenica, that were not indexed on Medline, but showed very crucial results for the issue described.

Language: en