Nigerian has had a long and unfortunate history of communal conflicts and ethno-religious violence, the recent of which is the escalation of Boko Haram activities and attacks in 2013. Many people were maimed, killed and rendered homeless leading to looking for succor in the camps. The research adopted cross-sectional descriptive design, multistage sampling technique was used in selecting the camps and samples having used Taro Yamane sample size determination formula. Three hundred and eighty seven (387) respondents were selected out of which only three hundred and fifty six (356) returned their administered questionnaire. Five (5) research questions were answered and five (5) null hpothesses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The instruments for the study were generated from three standardized inventory which are stress inventory, family systems stressor-strength inventory and life event inventory. The face validity and reliability of instruments were determined. Percentages, means scores and chi-square were used to analyze. The results on the demographic characteristics of respondents showed that 153 (43%) were males while 203 (57%) were female; there mean age was 31.3. 62.6% were Christians and 55.3 were marred 40.7% were employed while only 10.2% were not educated. All respondents showed various degrees of stress ranging from mild to severe. The highest psychosocial stressor was financial strain and accommodation away from home while the health related stressor was sleeping difficulties. More than half of respondents (56.2%) adopted emotion focused coping while 43.8% adopted problems focused coping. Religion was found to be significantly associated with the level of stress. Gender was significantly associated with the coping styles, It was concluded that youth radicalization should be addressed. The health of the people in the camps should be given a priority by establishing health centers in the various camps and should be managed by qualified health personnel.
Keywords: Boko Haram, Insurgency, Stress, Stressors, refugees
