Mental Health among Former Child Soldiers and Never-Abducted Children in Northern Uganda

Table 3

Pearson correlation coefficients of traumatic exposures and mental health problems among former child soldiers and never-abducted children.

	PTSD		Psychological distress		Emotional and Behavioral Problems
	(IES-R)		(BSI-18)		(SDQ)
	Former child	Never-abducted	Former child	Never-abducted	Former child	Never-abducted
	soldiers	children	soldiers	children	soldiers	children
Living in camp for IDPs	−.02	.23	.01	.18	.11	.06
Father dead	−.09	.16	−.12	.08	.01	−.03
Mother dead	−.08	.12	−.02	−.02	.01	−.12
Having to carry heavy loads	.14	.27^a	−.05	.19	−.01	.05
Being seriously beaten	.05	.26^a	.11	.32^a	.03	.14
Getting injured	−.02	.33^a	.04	.35^a	−.03	.06
Witnessing someone being killed	.12	.28^a	.17	.37^a	.14	.14
Killing someone personally	.08	.16	.16	.30^a	.20	.05
Having to drink urine	.12	.12	.29^a	.26^a	.30^a	.25
Having to loot properties	−.01	.20	.03	.16	.12	.09
Having to punish other children	.06	.17	.07	.30^a	.12	.16
Having to fight	.07	.07	−.01	.15	−.02	.15
Being forced to engage in sexual contact	.08	.20	.08	.40^a	.06	.14
Age at abduction	−.03		−.07		−.07
Length of abduction (months)	−.05		.04		.03

Abbreviations: PTSD: posttraumatic stress disorder; IES-R: Impact of Events Scale Revised; BSI-18: Brief Symptom Inventory 18; SDQ: Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire.
^a𝑃<.01, 2-tailed.