The mental health of children affected by armed conflict: Protective processes and pathways to resilience

By T. Betancourt, K. Khan. International Review of Psychiatry, 2008

755 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This paper examines the concept of resilience in the context of children affected by armed conflict. Resilience has been frequently viewed as a unique quality of certain ‘invulnerable’ children. In contrast, this paper argues that a number of protective processes contribute to resilient mental health outcomes in children when considered through the lens of the child's social ecology. While available research has made important contributions to understanding risk factors for negative mental health consequences of war-related violence and loss, the focus on trauma alone has resulted in inadequate attention to factors associated with resilient mental health outcomes. This paper presents key studies in the literature that address the interplay between risk and protective processes in the mental health of war-affected children from an ecological, developmental perspective. It suggests that further research on war-affected children should pay particular attention to coping and meaning making at the individual level; the role of attachment relationships, caregiver health, resources and connection in the family, and social support available in peer and extended social networks. Cultural and community influences such as attitudes towards mental health and healing as well as the meaning given to the experience of war itself are also important aspects of the larger social ecology.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/9e4e89f43dde3e99fca2f03128ab05386c3bf82b

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In Clinical Psychology

1. Sarah Klein
2. S. Romero
3. Erica D. Diminich
4. G. Bonanno
5. A. Masten
6. A. Mancini
7. Fred Luthans
8. John T. Jost

Citations in the corpus

• Annual Research Review: Positive adjustment to adversity -Trajectories of minimal-impact resilience and emergent resilience (2012, positive): “Social support ameliorated the impact of trauma exposure on distress in girls, but not in boys (Betancourt & Khan, 2008).”
• The Temporal Elements of Psychological Resilience: An Integrative Framework for the Study of Individuals, Families, and Communities (2015, background): “For example, among civil war–exposed populations in Afghanistan, the primary concern reported by adults was the war’s impact on a “broken economy,” whereas younger students were more concerned with impediments to education (Eggerman & PanterBrick, 2010).”