Abstract
Anger is a normal human emotion that is a common response to potentially traumatic events. Anger is also a risk factor for aggression and violence. With millions of Syrians having to flee and being refugees in other countries, anger was rarely assessed as there was no brief robust tool for anger in Arabic. To develop and test an Arabic version of the Dimensions of Anger Reactions 5 (DAR-5) scale, a five-question scale to screen for anger distress and problematic anger in adults and adolescents. DAR-5 was translated into Arabic, then back translated into English, and finally rechecked for accuracy. Participants were 1641 Syrian adults, (621 males and 1020 females) and 784 Syrian adolescents (355 males and 429 females) aged between 14 and 16 years old. Only Arabic speaking participants were included. Measures included the DAR-5 Arabic version (DAR-5-A) for both samples, the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21) for the adults, and the Children Revised Impact of Events Scale-8 for the adolescents. High levels of internal reliability were reported and factor analysis found that DAR-5-A scores fit as a single-factor model. This cut off score also differentiated between high and low scores on anxiety, depression and stress. This study reinforces the importance of assessing for anger in these populations. The DAR-5-A is written in formal Arabic and and a critical measure that can be used as a brief measure to assess for problematic anger in Arabic-speaking communities, either online or in paper questionnaires in adults and adolescents.
Highlights
Anger is a normal human emotion that manifests in a spectrum of expression from frustration and irritability to fury and rage [1]
The DAR-5A written in formal Arabic, is a critical measure that can be used as a brief measure to assess for this problematic anger in Syrians and other Arabic-speaking communities
It has been found to be implicated in the development and maintenance of PTSD, a significant comorbidity associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) beyond the PTSD items themselves that overlap with anger such as irritability [4], a risk factor for aggression and violence [5] and in the attenuation of PTSD treatment responsivity [6]
Summary
Anger is a normal human emotion that manifests in a spectrum of expression from frustration and irritability to fury and rage [1]. It has been found to be implicated in the development and maintenance of PTSD, a significant comorbidity associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) beyond the PTSD items themselves that overlap with anger such as irritability [4], a risk factor for aggression and violence [5] and in the attenuation of PTSD treatment responsivity [6]. Despite the ubiquitous nature of anger in trauma exposed populations and trauma survivors seeking treatment for PTSD, it is rarely assessed This is partly due to the less prominent representation of problematic anger in the clinical and research literature compared to anxiety and depression, and the historic limitations to the availability of brief and robust measurement tools. Anger is a normal human emotion that is a common response to potentially traumatic events and implicated in the development and maintenance of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). With millions of Syrians having to flee and being refugees in other countries, anger was rarely assessed as there was no brief robust tool for anger in Arabic
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