Patterns of Traumatic Events, Severity of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Alcohol Use Among High School Students in Turkana County

Abstract

Introduction: Turkana is one of the counties with numerous insecurities matters that has caused many intra and inter community traumatic experiences among the residents. Consequently, such insecurity coupled with high poverty levels has exposed the adolescent group into increasing the traumatic events. Objective: To explore the patterns of traumatic events, assess the severity of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and alcohol use among high school students in Turkana County and determine socio-demographic correlates of these disorders. Methodology: A cross sectional research design was adopted in this study. This is a method used to describe patterns of traumatic situations as well as the severity of PTSD and alcohol use among students in high schools in Turkana County, Kenya. A sample size of 312 participants was chosen using multi-stage stratified random sampling method. Set tools Socio-demographic questionnaire, Alcohol Smoking and Substance Involvement Screening Tool (ASSIST) and Life Events Checklist-University of California Los Angeles (LEC-UCLA) were used for data collection. Results: Results from this study are presented in form of graphs and frequency tables with data being entered into excel for analysis and SPSS version 25 was used to analyse the results. The patterns of traumatic events, severity of PTSD, alcohol use and Socio-demographic correlates among high school students in Turkana County will be analysed. A total of 305 students participated in the study. 60.9% were male, the mean age of 19 years. 72% attended boarding schools, average number of siblings was five with 82% of them having a guardian. Out of the participants 63.7 % reported to have experienced at least one traumatic event at one point in their lives. Traumatic patterns identified included being in a war environment and death of a loved one. PTSD prevalence was 53.1%, with 37.7% having mild symptoms, 55.6% moderate, and 6.8% having severe symptoms. Alcohol use had a prevalence of 26.3%; of these 31.3% showed mild severity and 68.7% had moderate usage. There was a significant association between traumatic events and PTSD and alcohol use with post-election violence (p=0.011), natural disasters (floods, fire, famine (p=0.027), being exposed to war environment (p=0.003), physical assault (p=0.001), seeing a dead body (p= 0.030), violent death of loved ones (p=0.005) and painful medical treatment (p= 0.002) being pronounced. A multivariate analysis indicated that gender (OR 1.269 95% CI 0.732 to 2.201), presence of a guardian (OR 1.053 95% CI 0.540 to 2.053) and type of school (OR 1.610 95% CI 0.722 to 3.590) increased the odds of PTSD occurrence; PTSD and alcohol had an odds ratio of 0.98, meaning that students with PTSD symptoms are 0.986 more likely to use alcohol. Conclusion: Results generated from the study reveal that high school students do face traumatic events and as a result develop PTSD and alcohol use problems. More studies are needed to explore the extent of this problem in Turkana County and what the community and government can do to alleviate the problem. These results would contribute to the body of knowledge existing on severity of PTSD and alcohol use among high school students.