@article{ref1,
title="The relationship of PTSD to key somatic complaints and cultural syndromes among Cambodian refugees attending a psychiatric clinic: The Cambodian Somatic Symptom and Syndrome Inventory (CSSI)",
journal="Transcultural psychiatry",
year="2013",
author="Hinton, Devon E. and Kredlow, M. Alexandra and Pich, Vuth and Bui, Eric and Hofmann, Stefan G.",
volume="50",
number="3",
pages="347-370",
abstract="This article describes a culturally sensitive questionnaire for the assessment of the effects of trauma in the Cambodian refugee population, the Cambodian Somatic Symptom and Syndrome Inventory (CSSI), and gives the results of a survey with the instrument. The survey examined the relationship of the CSSI, the two CSSI subscales, and the CSSI items to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) severity and self-perceived functioning. A total of 226 traumatized Cambodian refugees were assessed at a psychiatric clinic in Lowell, MA, USA. There was a high correlation of the CSSI, the CSSI somatic and syndrome scales, and all the CSSI items to the PTSD Checklist (PCL), a measure of PTSD severity. All the CSSI items varied greatly across three levels of PTSD severity, and patients with higher levels of PTSD had very high scores on certain CSSI-assessed somatic items such as dizziness, orthostatic dizziness (upon standing), and headache, and on certain CSSI-assessed cultural syndromes such as khyâl attacks, &quot;fear of fainting and dying upon standing up,&quot; and &quot;thinking a lot.&quot; The CSSI was more highly correlated than the PCL to self-perceived disability assessed by the Short Form-12 Health Survey (SF-12). The study demonstrates that the somatic symptoms and cultural syndromes described by the CSSI form a central part of the Cambodian refugee trauma ontology. The survey indicates that locally salient somatic symptoms and cultural syndromes need be profiled to adequately assess the effects of trauma.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="1363-4615",
doi="10.1177/1363461513481187",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1363461513481187"
}