Dialogues in Philosophy
Mental and Neuro Sciences
Dialogues in Philosophy, Mental and Neuro Sciences
The official journal of Crossing Dialogues
Volume 11, Issue 1 (June 2018)
ORIGINAL ARTICLES
Cultural adaptation of the Lifespan Memory Interview in the Asylum Seekers (LMI-AS)
Anna Maria Petta, Flaminia Kiaris, Massimiliano Aragona, Edvaldo Begotaraj, Evita Gobbo Carrer, Vanessa Curcio, Carlo Lai, Grazia Fernanda Spitoni
Asylum seekers and refugees are likely to be exposed to traumatic experience and they often suffer from post-traumatic symptoms. Patients with post-traumatic disorder have some cognitive impairment in several functions such as in memory. Memory impairment is often related to autobiographical memory.
In this study we derived a new instrument to evaluate this kind of memory, i.e. the “Lifespan Memory Interview in the Asylum Seekers (LMI-AS)”. This interview is composed of questions related to childhood, adult and recent life period. This is the first report on the adaptation
process of this interview in a sample of 14 African asylum seekers. They were adult males with a minimum level of education of 3 years. In this study we also evaluated the level of stress and difficulty perceived by the patient in order to understand the questions.
LMI-AS was well understood by participants and it represented a potentially useful instrument to assess autobiographic memory.
Secondary results: traumatized asylum seekers may present problems in recalling personal memories but in our study this does not involve too much the consistency of memory capacities at retest, after one week.
Finally, it shall be underlined that patients have perceived the interview as quite stressful, hence it should not be used as a general screening instrument but only in case of clinical needs and administered by clinicians expert in stress management.
Keywords: autobiographical memory, memory disorder, memory interview, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, asylum seekers, refugees
Dial Phil Ment Neuro Sci 2018; 11(1): 19-31
Received on June 05, 2018
Accepted on June 07, 2018
Firstly published online on August 18, 2018