ABSTRACT
METHODS In 1996, Ruke, a private social service agency based in Croatia, and the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma interviewed a random sample of 534 adults from families living in the Varazdin Bosnian refugee camps in northeastern Croatia.• In 1999, the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma and 9 members oft he original interviewing staff located and reinterviewed all the original respondents still living in the region and the families of the deceased. The reinterview followed procedures established in the baseline study.' The interviews, conducted in Bosnian, took an average of 90 minutes. Informed consent procedures and the study design were approved by the human subjects committee of the Harvard Medical School. The interviewer explained the purpose of the study and read text that explained that responses would be treated confidentially, that an individual's responses could not be identified in any summary reports, and that participation was voluntary. They were also told that they could choose not to answer specific questions.
