RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER AND PSYCHOLOGICAL ADJUSTMENT OF INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSONS IN DURUMI-1 CAMP, ABUJA, NIGERIA

Abstract

This study investigated the Relationship between Posttraumatic Stress Disorder on
Psychological Adjustment of Internally Displaced Persons in Durumi Camp Abuja Nigeria. Ex-
post Facto research design was used for the study. Population of the study comprises of male and
female late adolescent and adult IDPs. 380 IDPs were sampled out of 1,260 IDPs in Durumi
Camp using simple random sampling technique. The two Instruments used for the study are
Harvard Trauma questionnaire (HTQ) for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder with focus on
depressive symptoms and Psychological Adjustment Scale (PAS) with emotional and social
adjustment as sub scales. Two research questions were formulated with their corresponding null
hypotheses. Pearson Product Moment Correlation was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level
of significant. The results shows that depression has a significant negative relationship on
emotional adjustment of IDPs (r = - 0.791, p = 0.006). Depression has a significant negative
relationship on social adjustment of IDPs (r = - 0.657, p = 0.024). Based on the findings of this
study, it was recommended that psychologists should be trained and employed for psychological
intervention of the PTSD victims since depression was found to have significant negative
relationship on emotional and social adjustment of the IDPs.