**9. Conclusion**

This project, which lasted 4 years after the conflicts in the western region of Côte d'Ivoire during the 2002 war aimed at assessing the magnitude of post-traumatic stress disorder. Tomkiewicz (1997) argues that, if we want to save child soldiers, it is not enough to heal their bodies, their wounds, their lesions; it does not suffice to give them food, to vaccinate them; we must caress them, smile to them; we need to talk to them. In order to be able to talk to them and to listen to them, it is absolutely necessary to associate them to a local team whose members could bring confidence in them. Even if we find this idea judicious, this seemed difficult to implement in our context for several reasons.

On the one hand our own humanness was too upset by this human catastrophe, and by this dehumanizing catastrophe. At the beginning, the organizers emotional equilibrium, and ours was seriously required by anything to be done in order to restore a minimum of decent psychic and social life to permit us help the traumatized former child soldiers.

On the other hand, the local organizers were themselves, either veterans, or war victims and their relations with the children were, most of the time conflicting.

Our results indicate that 89.32% of the children achieved some degree of improvement in their mental health situation.

#### **10. References**

180 Post Traumatic Stress Disorders in a Global Context

the villages where we worked, to thwart, even to destroy the projects and the difficulties met by our agents in overcoming this difficulty leads us to argue that it is imperative to prepare field through a good alliance with the villagers and the parents of the beneficiaries of post-conflict reintegration programs. The question was to offer the possibility of the villagers to accept the activity through an understanding of the project and a better knowledge of the short and long term benefit for the children, but also for them and for the

In September 2007, we noted an improvement rate in the health condition of 89.32% of the participating children and teenagers. Residual symptoms were dominated by behavior disorders, insomnia and headaches. Most studies have reported an improvement in symptoms or a decline in the level of psychopathology in the course of time (from some months to a number of years) with the majority of the children. The duration and the degree of remission depends, on the degree of exposure to traumatic stress, of the manner in which

To back our psychotherapeutic action, we implemented medical treatment, especially some

The premature giving up of the drugs parallels a general observation marked by the difficulty for Ivoirians to take drugs on a long term basis, which could explain the short period of medication and the lack of compliance. Or the medical treatment, especially antidepressive may permit to attenuate the symptoms and favor thus the verbalization of the

The continuous psychosocial help permits the improvement of emotional disorders in children and teenagers. Supported by a psychosocial environment, the children had seen their situations improve. This is particularly the case when antidepressant medication is used to support psychotherapeutic and psychosocial intervention. However the reluctance of Ivorians to take medication on a long-term basis often undermines the potential clinical outcomes of post-conflict interventions for psychological consequences of traumatic stress. In line with African tradition, which argues that a child belongs to the community before belonging to his parents, child orphans always found someone to accommodate them in our study settings. The fact that the children returned to their village after the war, that they found a home, a house, and a place in the community was certainly comforting for children who returned from war. In our view reintegration of former child soldiers into accepting homes gave the children new meaning to the children against the background of chaos brought about by the war and its associated trauma. Finding a home gives the child a new sense of being human, hope as a member of the human community where war dehumanizes, to find parental comfort and love where solitude and acts of violence enslaves

This project, which lasted 4 years after the conflicts in the western region of Côte d'Ivoire during the 2002 war aimed at assessing the magnitude of post-traumatic stress disorder. Tomkiewicz (1997) argues that, if we want to save child soldiers, it is not enough to heal their bodies, their wounds, their lesions; it does not suffice to give them food, to vaccinate them; we must caress them, smile to them; we need to talk to them. In order to be able to

whole community.

amitryptillin (35-75 mg/day).

human beings.

**9. Conclusion** 

**8.6 Which efficiency, during and after those actions?** 

families react and of the social support for families (Cordahi & al, 2002).

psychic pain and allow a psychotherapeutic access (Deniau& Cohen, 2011).


**9** 

*1Uganda 2USA* 

**Post Traumatic Stress Disorder –** 

Emilio Ovuga1 and Carol Larroque2 *1Faculty of Medicine, Gulu University,* 

*2University of New Mexico,* 

**A Northern Uganda Clinical Perspective** 

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a psychiatric condition, which develops after a person experiences, witnesses, is confronted with or hears about emotionally stressful and painful experiences beyond what a human being can bear. The traumatic event may be life threatening; threatens body integrity and causes considerable fear, horror and a sense of helplessness in the affected individual (APA, 1992). Traumatic events are psychologically wounding to the individual and leave deep scars (Anonymous, 2009; and Tonks, 2007) on trauma victims; they are dehumanising, demoralising and humiliating, and may put an abrupt end to the hopes and plans of an otherwise enterprising individual, as the individual loses the sense of the future (Bardin, 2005) as one of the clinical features of post-traumatic

The experience of traumatic stress in the history of human kind is perhaps not new and was probably limited to the processes of survival in pre-historic times. However with civilization and modernization the nature scope and experience of traumatic stress has become more complex and sophisticated in terms of clinical significance, individual perception and interpretation of the traumatic experience, and public health importance. In Uganda the nature of traumatic stress ranges from natural events including road traffic accidents, industrial accidents, domestic accidents, floods, landslides and occasional earth tremors to manmade traumatic events such as orchestrated domestic violence, child abuse and neglect, and organized violence and war, the most recent of which took place from 1986 to 2009. In recent times there has been an upsurge of child abductions for human sacrifice in Uganda, and this has been extremely traumatizing to affected families and

War is of particular significance as it is manmade, is associated with significant mental health problems (Murthy & Lakshminarayana, 2006), causes more suffering, deaths and disability within the same time unit than an epidemic, and imposes considerable economic and social burden on communities (Murray et al, 2002). The psychological and psychiatric consequences of traumatic experience have been the subject of initial disagreement and debate in the international literature. However the personal accounts of victims of violence and war as detailed by Judith L. Herman (1997) in her book on trauma; and client accounts

**1. Introduction** 

stress disorder.

relatives.


http://www.unicef.org/french/infobycountry/cotedivoire\_statistics.html

