An investigation of the relationship between internal and external factors and resilience of internally displaced persons after the experience of trauma : a case study of Kiambaa Village in Eldoret East sub-county in Uasin Gishu County, Kenya

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate factors that influence resilience after trauma among internally displaced persons in Kiambaa village, Uasin Gishu County, Kenya. The rationale, the problem statement, the objectives as well as the research questions and the theoretical framework were presented in chapter one. The theoretical concepts of Richardson’s “meta-theory of resilience and resiliency” and Joseph and Linley “organism valuing theory” guided this study. The problem statement posited revealed that when people experience tragic events such as violence they get traumatized. Despite this, there are individuals who are able to adopt and bounce back with minimal disruptions to their lives, a factor referred to as resilience. Chapter two presented related literature by reviewing empirical research studies on the internal and external factors that contribute to resilience after trauma. Chapter three discussed the methodology of the study. The study adopted a mixed design approach. The target population for this study was 50. It comprised all individuals who were victims of the fire tragedy at Kiambaa village. Twenty two respondents for this study were selected from the target population using purposive and snow ball sampling techniques. Questionnaires and unstructured interview schedule were the main tools of data collection. The Big Five Inventory (BFI) by John, Donahue, & Kentle, (1991) personality were used to classify respondents’ personalities.The 25 item Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale 25 (CD-RISC-25) (used with permission) (Connor, & Davidson, 2003) was used to measure the resilience levels of the respondents. Means and Standard deviations were computed to quantify the amount of variation or dispersion of resilience among the respondents. Responses from research tools were cleaned, coded and entered into Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) for analysis. Descriptive data were organized into themes and categories and presented according to the objectives of the study. Pearson product moment correlation analysis, Chi square correlation analysis and Spearman rank correlation analysis were computed to establish the relationships between study variables. Chapter four presented findings in form of tables, cumulative frequency counts, graphs and charts. The major findings of the study were as follows: The internal factors that contribute to resilience in individuals were age, gender and personality. However, gender had a greater influence on individuals’ resilience levels. Other factors included personality and age. The main external factors that contributed to resilience in individuals of the fire tragedy at Kiambaa were spirituality and social support. The results of a Pearson correlation analysis confirmed a strong positive correlation between social support and resilience of individuals (r=0.835, p<0.05). Chapter five presented conclusions arising from the findings which indicated that age, gender, personality, spirituality and social support are significant internal and external factors that influence resilience levels of individuals. The study recommends that there is need for professionals working with traumatized individuals to be more familiar with these factors that contribute to resilience. The researcher also recommends that there is need to extend the present study by including other potentially important variables such as a wider range of psychosocial resources or health-related variables. Understanding the influence and importance of these variables may help to clarify the role of resilience in post-disaster adaptation. In addition, the researcher recommends that there is need to further extend the study to investigate the relationship between psychological resilience and another positive outcome, such as posttraumatic growth (PTG).