Understanding the Mental Health Consequences of Family Separation for Refugees: Implications for Policy and Practice.

Understanding the Mental Health Consequences of Family Separation for Refugees: Implications for Policy and Practice. Am J Orthopsychiatry. 2017 Jun 15;: Authors: Miller A, Hess JM, Bybee D, Goodkind JR Abstract Consistent evidence documents the negative impacts of family separation on refugee mental health and concerns for the welfare of distant family members and desire to reunite with family members as priorities for refugees postmigration. Less is known about refugees' emic perspectives on their experiences of family separation. Using mixed methods data from a community-based mental health intervention study, we found that family separation was a major source of distress for refugees and that it was experienced in a range of ways: as fear for family still in harm's way, as a feeling of helplessness, as cultural disruption, as the greatest source of distress since resettlement, and contributing to mixed emotions around resettlement. In addition to these qualitative findings, we used quantitative data to test the relative contribution of family separation to refugees' depression/anxiety symptoms, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, and psychological quality of life. Separation from a family member was significantly related to all 3 measures of mental health, and it explained significant additional variance in all 3 measures even after accounting for participants' overall level of trauma exposure. Relative to 26 other typ...
Source: The American Journal of Orthopsychiatry - Category: Psychiatry Tags: Am J Orthopsychiatry Source Type: research