Correlations between Types of Traumatic Events with PTSD among University Students in Goma, DR Congo

Abstract

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a psychological disorder that might arise in individuals following a critical incident where their natural ability of fight or flight responses is impaired or challenged. PTSD is among the mental health problems that every so often remains undiagnosed and untreated among people and specifically undergraduate students (Bourdon et al., 2020; Acuña et al., 2022). PTSD could be high in situations where students have been exposed to traumatic events in their lives such as in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo. Therefore, the objective of this study was to establish the correlation between types of traumatic events with PTSD among university undergraduates in Goma town, DR Congo. The exploratory survey design was adopted targeting 4,050 undergraduate students from two universities in Goma town. A consecutive sampling technique was used to select 809 participants. Data was collected using the PTSD Scale for DSM-5(PCL-5) and LEC Self-Report instrument and was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics with the aid of SPSS Version 22. The findings revealed that there were significant correlations between different types of traumatic events with PTSD among undergraduate students in the area. Traumatic events found to increase the PTSD risk significantly were exposure to natural disasters, sexual-related trauma, sudden violent death, severe human sufferings, and severe harm, injury, or death caused to others. It is, therefore, recommended that universities and relevant stakeholders should initiate professional mental health service provision in the universities in Congo.