Original article
Mental Health Problems in Separated Refugee Adolescents

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2008.07.016Get rights and content

Abstract

Purpose

As migration and separation from parents are widely recognized as important risk factors for the mental health of adolescents, this study aims to investigate mental health problems in refugee adolescents separated from their parents compared to their accompanied peers, all living in Belgium.

Methods

One thousand two hundred ninety-four adolescents—10% of them refugee adolescents separated from both parents—completed three self-report questionnaires (Hopkins Symptoms Checklist-37A, Stressful Life Events, and Reaction of Adolescents to Traumatic Stress) on the prevalence of traumatic experiences, anxiety, and depression symptoms, externalizing problems, and posttraumatic stress.

Results

Refugee adolescents separated from both parents experienced the highest number of traumatic events compared to accompanied refugee adolescents. Risk factors influencing the development of serious mental health problems (anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress) are separation from parents, high number of traumatizing events experienced, and gender. Despite the fact that refugee adolescents living only with their mother experienced more traumatizing events compared to adolescents living with both parents, they have fewer mental health problems than refugee adolescents living with their father.

Conclusions

This study confirms the importance of the availability of parents to adolescents who have to deal with migration experiences, because separated refugee adolescents are at higher risk to experience multiple traumatic experiences and to develop severe mental health problems. Reception and care structures should provide more adequate preventive and curative interventions to these at-risk groups, and government policies should consider these adolescents primarily as “minors” rather than just “refugees.”

Section snippets

Study setting and design

The study was conducted in language classes for newly arrived, 11-year to 18-year-old, non-Dutch-speaking adolescents in Flanders (Belgium). In these language classes, adolescents having too little knowledge of the Dutch language can take language courses for an entire school year. From the 42 schools organizing these classes, 34 were randomly selected to participate. After a description of the study to the participants, their written informed consent was obtained, and they completed,

Demographic and social characteristics

Table 1 gives some demographic and social characteristics of the study group, divided in subgroups according to the person the adolescent is currently living with. Refugee adolescents separated from both parents are somewhat older than accompanied refugee adolescents, F(4) = 18.31, p = .000, and almost two-thirds of the unaccompanied refugee minors are male (χ2 = 8.71, df = 4; p = .069) (Table 1). The participants originate from 94 different countries, with as main countries of origin Morocco

Discussion

Separation from parents clearly is associated with a poorer mental health of adolescents, certainly when also other aggravating factors, such as migration, are involved. This study clearly shows how separation from both parents for refugee adolescents is linked to higher risks on developing serious mental health problems, such as anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress symptoms [25], [26]. The high prevalence of mental health problems in unaccompanied refugee adolescents (between 41% and

Acknowledgments

We are very grateful to all participating children and adolescents.

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    This study was supported by a Ph.D. Bursary of the Special Research Fund of Ghent University.

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