ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Mental Health
This article is part of the Research TopicPrediction of trauma-related disorders: Identifying pre-exposure factors, neurobiological mechanisms, and their impact on future adaptation in a comprehensive analysis of risk and resilienceView all 3 articles
Post-traumatic stress disorder in French Guiana: Prevalence and risk factors in the general population
Provisionally accepted
Mathieu Nacher1*
astrid van-melle1estelle thomas1Johanna Pavie2blandine solignat3Imane Benradia4deborah sebbane4eva aernout4jean-luc roelandt4caroline janvier3francois lair3vincent bobillier3- 1INSERM CIC1424 Centre d'Investigation Clinique Antilles Guyane, Cayenne, French Guiana
- 2Plateforme Rétablissement, Groupe SOS, Cayenne, French Guiana
- 3CHU de Guyane, Cayenne, French Guiana
- 4Centre collaborateur de l'OMS pour la recherche et la formation en santé mentale – CCOMS. Service de l'EPSM Lille-Métropole, Lille, France
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Background With regards to post-traumatic stress disorder, the context of French Guiana —frequent violence and intense immigration of persons from areas where traumatic events are common— may lead to a different epidemiology of PTSD relative to mainland France. In the absence of prior data, we aimed to estimate the overall prevalence of PTSD in the general population of French Guiana and its prevalence in different sociodemographic groups. Methods A cross sectional survey was conducted between March and August 2021 interviewing 881 persons aged >17 years. Results The global prevalence was 7.6 [95% CI=5.9-9.5]. After adjusting for potential confounding among the sociodemographic variables only Female sex (adjusted prevalence ratio (aPR)=2.1 (IC95=1.2-3.6), P=0.006), being a student (aPR=2.4 (IC95=1.0-5.6), P=0.05), being from Suriname (aPR=5.8 (1.0-33.4), P=0.05), not having completed primary education (aPR=3.4 (IC95=1.3-8.9), P=0.01), and being separated or divorced (aPR=3 (IC95=1.1-8.2), P=0.02) were significantly associated with PTSD. Only 31 of 67 persons with PTSD (46.3%) sought care. Overall, 21 of 67 (31.3%) declared having taken treatment for their symptoms and 29/67 (43.3%) took alternative treatments, mostly plant-based traditional medicine. Among the 394 persons having lived through an unusual traumatic event 67 (17%) developed PTSD. Conclusions We show that the prevalence is 10 times greater than in mainland France, and that behind this, there are great differences between origins, sexes, and age groups. We also show that the majority of persons do not care for their symptoms and that those who do often combine western and traditional medicine. The results emphasize the need for culturally sensitive screening and care.
Keywords: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Migration, age, gender, French Guiana
Received: 17 Jul 2025; Accepted: 27 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Nacher, van-melle, thomas, Pavie, solignat, Benradia, sebbane, aernout, roelandt, janvier, lair and bobillier. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Mathieu Nacher, mathieu.nacher66@gmail.com
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.