The Bhutanese refugee camps of eastern Nepal are home to a mass resettlement operation over half the population has been relocated within the past five years. While recent research suggests Bhutanese refugees are experiencing degradation of social networks and rising suicide rates, little is known about ethnocultural pathways to coping and resilience in this population.
A common coping measure Brief COPE was adapted to the linguistic and cultural context of the refugee camps and administered to a representative sample of 193 Bhutanese refugees as part of a broader tenmonth ethnographic study of resilience.
Active coping, planning, and positive reframing were the most frequently utilized strategies, followed by acceptance, religion, and seeking emotional support. Exploratory factor analysis resulted in five factors humor, denial, behavioral disengagement positive reframing, planning, active coping emotional support, instrumental support interpersonal a new subscale, acceptance, selfblame and venting, religion.
Data support the relevance of some dimensions of coping while revealing particularities of this population.