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.”
Key words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: November 12, 2008
Accepted:
July 10,
2008
Received:
March 5,
2008
Footnotes
This study was supported by a Ph.D. Bursary of the Special Research Fund of Ghent University.
Identification
Copyright
© 2009 Society for Adolescent Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
