Development and Validation of Post traumatic Conditions Scale (PCS) for Internally Displaced Persons (IDP)

Abstract

Proper management of internally displaced persons depends to great extent on a proper assessment of their conditions. Many instruments have been used such as Harvard Trauma Questionnaire (HTQ) Short Form-8 among others to assess the psychological or mental health of the displaced persons neglecting the economic and social aspects, hence the need for a more robust instrument. To accomplish this, the present study developed and validated posttraumatic conditions scale for comprehensive assessment of the internally displaced persons. The study was carried out in two phases. In the first phase the items of the scale were generated through Focused Group Discussion with 45 IDPs in Makoko camp in Lagos and from review of literature. A total of 49 items were generated but were later reduced to 30-items after they were subjected to exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The items were also given to five expert for face validated after which a pilot study was carried out by administering the instrument to 100 internally displaced persons in Kuchingoro IDP camp in Abuja. A Cronbach alpha of .75 was obtained, which shows the instrument was reliable, and the result also supported multidimensional nature of the scale. In the second phase, the scale was administered to 188 internally displaced persons at Area One IDPs’ camp in Abuja. The result also supported the internal consistency of PCS with Cronbach alpha of .818. EFA result showed Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) value of .720 and Bartlett's Test of Sphericity significance with a p-value of 0.000 at p< .001. The CFA result yielded a 7-dimensional divergent scale with 30-items, with the entire dimension possessing the required threshold that shows a high validity index. It was concluded that the PCS should be part of the documents that should be used for proper assessment of IDPs thereby making it imperative to include psychologists in their management. It will also serve as a guide to government in policy-making about internal displacement.