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Tag: PTSD

  • Neighborhood Social Cohesion and Post-Traumatic Stress Among Female North Korean Defectors

    Neighborhood Social Cohesion and Post-Traumatic Stress Among Female North Korean Defectors

    Loneliness negatively predicts post-traumatic growth (PTG) among North Korean defectors (NKD), one of the representative groups of refugees. Additionally, evidence also suggests that females, who account for 70% of NKDs entering South Korea, are vulnerable not only to past trauma but also to the current acculturation stress and loneliness affected by neighborhood social cohesion. This study explores whether the mediating effect of loneliness on the relationship between acculturation stress and PTG was moderated by the neighborhood social cohesion among female NKDs.

    In this study, the data of 166 female NKDs who completed an online survey regarding acculturation stress, PTG, loneliness, and neighborhood social cohesion were used. Moderated mediation analysis was conducted using SPSS PROCESS macro program. Neighborhood social cohesion moderated the mediation effect of loneliness on the association between acculturation stress. The indirect effect of acculturation stress on PTG through loneliness was notably high for those with low neighborhood social cohesion.

    Therefore, increasing neighborhood social cohesion would reduce loneliness caused by acculturation stress and support the positive growth among female NKDs. This represents the most effective approach to aiding female NKDs in achieving growth, even after suffering trauma.

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-43741-3

  • North Korean defector: I had reoccurring nightmares, like everyone else

    North Korean defector: I had reoccurring nightmares, like everyone else

    How post-traumatic stress disorder follows North Koreans all the way south

    She defected from North Korea 15 years ago, crossing over into China, Vietnam, and Cambodia before finally reaching and entering South Korea. The process was “relatively” trouble-free. There was one thing she had not expected, however — the constant, reoccurring nightmares that followed her for three years.“I was never tortured or taken away in the North. I didn’t experience any traumatizing pain. However, after Kim Il-sung, the founder of North Korea, died, many people starved to death and died for other reasons. I did undergo the troubling times then,” said Nam Young-hwa, a North Korean defector.

    Nam’s family was an upper middle class, and she was part of the elite. She majored in chemistry and worked as the secretary for an agricultural organization – a sign of wealth and independence uncommon for North Korean women. But no amount of individual wealth could protect her from the economic and social hardship that plagued the nation.

    “After experiencing national famine and crossing over to China and into South Korea, I started having nightmares for three years. I was afraid someone would hunt me down, and it felt like someone was coming to get me. I dreamt North Korean police was raiding my house in the North,” she said.

    Nam was not the only defector suffering from such dreams that persisted.

    https://www.koreabiomed.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=3464