Discussion 1

Abdel a 40-year-old male refugee with a bachelor's degree in theology spent 12 years living in a refugee camp in an African nation (Plummer & Makris, 2014). He was first considered a refugee by a United Nations six months after arriving at the camp but was forced to wait 12 years before his arrangements were finalized to come to the United States (Plummer & Makris, 2014).

During his time in the camp, he lost all contact with family and friends and was informed that his wife had remarried and had other children by her new husband (Plummer & Makris, 2014). Abdel was heartbroken by this news but wanted his wife to be happy with her new life because she believed him to be deceased, during his time in camp both of Abdel parents passed away adding to his depression (Plummer & Makris, 2014).

Before making it to the refugee camp Abdel was a prisoner who was beaten and deprived of food, water and basic sanitary necessities (Plummer & Makris, 2014). These conditions have caused him to have poor dental health and chronic health problems (Plummer & Makris, 2014) Because of his refugee status, Abdel qualifies for some special services offered by the United States government (Plummer & Makris, 2014).

Close to 1 million refugees from around the world have entered the United States, fleeing repression, war, terrorism, and disease the government understands that many refugees and immigrants will appear in the offices of health care professionals with symptoms that may be related either directly or indirectly to torture both physical and psychological torture may result in long-term sequelae (Weinstein, Dansky&Iacopino, 1996). Abdel enrolled in a program to get job training, continuous education information and help with bonding with his new community (Plummer & Makris, 2014). When Abdel first started the program the work could since that Abdel was angry with how his life had changed over the years, from the imprisonment, losing his family and now having to rely on the support of a strange new government (Plummer & Makris, 2014).

For the issues that Abdel is facing, I chose to use the Novaco Anger Scale and Provocation Inventory (NAS-PI. This test was designed to assess anger as a problem of psychological functioning and physical health and to assess therapeutic change (Novaco, 2003). Because of the physical torture that Abdel endured then the mental hardships, he faced afterward, this test, in my opinion, would be the best to address his anger problems then come up with an intervention needed to help address the issues he is facing.

The NAS-PI can be recommended as a convenient self-report assessment of anger and its principal dimensions to be used in community, clinical, and forensic settings, both as a snapshot index of current anger levels and as a barometer of progress and change (Novaco, 2003 The test is a two part self-reporting questionnaire, which contains 60 Novaco Anger Scale (NAS) questions and 25 Provocation Inventory (PI) questions. The NAS gives five scores that cover the cognitive, behavior, arousal and anger regulation (Novaco, 2013).

The PI focuses on the kind of situations that lead to anger in five areas; disrespectful treatment, unfairness, frustration, annoying traits of others and irritation to produce the PI score (Novaco, 2013). The construct validity of the NAS was assessed by obtaining its correlations with the Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory, the STAXI Trait Anger Scale, and two other anger scales, producing coefficients ranging from .69 to .84 in a sample of 141 in patients (Novaco, 2013).

Data from inpatients in a high-security forensic unit in Scotland showed a similar range of intercorrelations of the NAS-PI with other anger measures, but much lower correlations with the Beck Depression Inventory, attesting to the NAS-PI's discriminant validity (Novaco, 2013). The test-retest reliability, parallel-form reliability, concurrent validity, and discriminant validity of the NAS were found to be satisfactory in 204 male offenders in Canada, this study and many like it exemplify the substantial professional literature that has developed in recent years from Novaco's research on the assessment of anger (Novaco, 2013).

The NAS-PI can be recommended as a convenient self-report assessment of anger and its principal dimensions to be used in a community, clinical, and forensic settings, both as a snapshot index of current anger levels and as a barometer of progress and change (Mills, Kroner & Forth, 1998).

Reference

Plummer, S.-B., Makris, S., Brocksen, S. (Ed) (2014). Sessions: Case histories, Baltimore MD: Laureate International Universities. Publishing [Vitalsource e-reader.

Mills, J. F., Kroner, D. G., & Forth, A. E. (1998). Novaco anger scale: Reliability and validity within an adult criminal sample. Assessment, 5, 237-248.

Weinstein, H., Dansky, L., &Iacopino, V., (1996). Torture and war trauma survivors in primary care practice. Western Journal of Medicine, 165(3): 112-118. PMCID: PMC 1303716