Abstract
Objectives: The primary aim of this research was to develop a questionnaire that assesses perceived injustice among survivors of war and trauma in conflict areas and to evaluate its psychometric properties. This paper presents the first preliminary validation. Furthermore, the assumption that the general perception of injustice correlates with one’s own experiences of injustice and violence was tested. Methods: The 24-item Perceived Injustice Questionnaire (PIQ) was administered partly online and partly in a paper–pencil version to 89 students of the University of Dohuk in Northern Iraq, an area that has been affected by crisis and war for many years. Principal component analysis was used for factor extraction and internal consistency was determined. The Mann–Whitney-U test was used to calculate the group differences between people with and without experience of physical violence and strong experiences of injustice because Kolmogorov–Smirnov tests showed that the data are not normally distributed. Results: Principal component analysis yielded a four-component solution with eigenvalues being the greater one. Cronbach’s alpha for each scale was acceptable to satisfactory. Significant results of the Mann–Whitney U tests supported our assumptions of between-group differences on each of the subscales (emotional and cognitive consequences, injustice perception, injustice experience, revenge, and forgiveness). Discussion: The findings of this study support the construct validity and the reliability of the PIQ. For this reason, it can be seen as a useful addition to the psychological assessment in psychotherapeutic settings of survivors of war and violence. In conclusion, and based on the PIQ, we suggest the development of a new set of therapy modules with worksheets, focusing on the perception, dealing, and understanding of feeling of injustice as an addition to the existing trauma therapy manual for therapy in war and conflict areas.
Highlights
Traumatic war experiences are often followed by psychological consequences such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or depression [6]
We aimed to develop a new inventory that collects information on how individuals in critical areas categorize potentially unjust experiences, whether those affect their perception of justice in general, and how they cope with that perception
Meyer–Olkin score of 0.78 confirmed the adequacy of the data for this analysis, and Bartlett’s test of sphericity was significant (p < 0.001), indicating that correlations between items were sufficiently large for performing a Principal component analysis (PCA)
Summary
People perceive different actions as unjust and react differently to injustice experiences [1]. This subjective perception of injustice can determine their actions and their mental health. Research on people suffering from pain after traumatic accidents has shown that people who subjectively perceive their situation as less just feel pain for a longer time and more strongly [2,3,4,5]. Traumatic war experiences are often followed by psychological consequences such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or depression [6]. Ten percent of people who had to flee their homeland due to natural disasters or persecution suffer from PTSD.
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