Fifty-four adult patients with histories as refugees and trauma survivors were recruited into the study over the years 2006 to 2009 as they entered outpatient treatment in mental health specialist services. The design was naturalistic and longitudinal, with no restraints on therapeutic approach or treatment duration. Each participant was assessed several times over the course of three years. We used interviews and assessment instruments common and less common to the field of refugee mental health. Our aim was to provide new insights as well as being able to compare our data with findings from research of similar patient groups. We interviewed the adult participants extensively about their life-history, childhood adverse events, the war-related and other traumatic events that had led to their flight, and the course of events after flight. We also used the Rorschach personality assessment method at treatment start. The Rorschach is a performance-based method which provides data about the individuals’ mental and emotional functions, like the way they perceive, structure, evaluate, and react to objects and events in the outside world, especially in new and potentially stressful situations. In addition, we used self-report inventories to record symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (reexperiencing, arousal, and avoidance symptom clusters), anxiety, depression, and four aspects of quality of life (physical health, psychological health, social relationships, and environmental conditions), which were repeated several times along with a qualitative interview. Finally, we recorded their employment history and status at various times and their Norwegian skills as observable aspects of their daily life function. We also recorded information about the therapists and about treatment length, the number of sessions, dates of treatment start, terminations, and any restarts, and the clinician-determined diagnoses.
