OPERAZIONALIZING THE CONSTRUCT OF AGENCY AMONG WAR AFFECTED CHILDREN. A QUANTITATIVE PILOT STUDY IN PALESTINE

Over one billion children are growing up throughout the world in contexts of political violence and armed conflict. Exposure to political violence has been linked to high rates of psychological distress, increased sensitivity to conflict and odds of maladjustment. In Palestine, many studies linked exposure to armed clashes, bombardment and houses’ demolitions to depression, traumatic stress and anxiety in children exposed. However, a growing corpus of research has shown that Palestinian children continue to display positive functioning and good abilities in adjusting to trauma. Moving from a socio-ecological perspective, this study aimed at investigating attitudes of agency and psychological adjustment to trauma in children living in different areas of Palestine. We hypothesized that the more children are showing good life satisfaction, hope and agency, the less they suffer of traumatic symptoms (intrusion and avoidance). Self-reported measures were administered to 200 children (120 from West Bank, 80 from Gaza strip, Age 11,2; s.d.2,03; range 7-13). PANAS-C was used to assess positive and negative affects; MSLSS was designed at measuring children’s life satisfaction in five domains (self, family, friends, school, and living environment). FS was measuring self-perceived happiness. CHS detected agency and hope, whilst CRIES-13 traumatic responses (intrusion and avoidance) among children. Pearson correlation and linear regression were carried-out in order to test our hypothesis. Results showed that positive emotion and life satisfaction contribute to mitigate the impact of traumatic events. Linear regression analyses pointed-out that positive emotions significantly contributed to children’s life satisfaction. Agency and hope significantly correlated to positive emotions. These findings may give a more comprehensive picture on children’s abilities in adjusting to trauma and provide guidance for clinical interventions oriented at enhancing children’s well-being