Community-based interventions for improving mental health in refugee children and adolescents in high-income countries

Transdiagnostic Psychosocial Interventions to Promote Mental Health in Forcibly Displaced Persons: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…Overall, there is relatively little research on mental health promotion and prevention of mental symptoms in forcibly displaced persons compared to research on similar interventions in other populations that are at lower risk for mental disorders (e.g., empolyees, students; Conley et al, 2015;Galante et al, 2021). Moreover, the present review showed that a major shortcoming of research into (transdiagnostic) interventions to promote mental health and/or prevent mental symptoms in forcibly displaced persons is the focus of research on interventions delivered in upper-middle to high-income countries (Nosè et al, 2017;Soltan et al, 2022;Uphoff et al, 2019). In case of our quantitative synthesis, 70 of 94 effect sizes (74.5%) came from upper-middle-or high-income countries, which stands in strong contrast to the fact that 82% of forcibly displaced persons live and need care in low-income and developing countries (UNHCR, 2022; Wainberg et al, 2017).…”

“…These may include cognitive behavioral therapies (CBTs; e.g., narrative exposure therapy [NET;Schauer et al, 2011], trauma-focused CBT [Ehlers, 2013], culturally sensitive CBT [Hinton et al, 2012]) or other forms of psychotherapy (e.g., eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy [EMDR; Shapiro, 2012]). While several reviews and meta-analyses examined the effects of (mostly trauma-focused) psychotherapy in forcibly displaced persons in different age groups (Morina & Sterr, 2019;Thompson et al, 2018;Uphoff et al, 2019), so far, only one review targeted (community-based) prevention measures for forcibly displaced children and adolescents in high-income countries (Soltan et al, 2020(Soltan et al, , 2022. In this review, no evidence for an effect of community-based interventions was observed in comparison to wait-list controls for PTSD symptoms, depressive symptoms, and psychological distress.…”

Complex PTSD and Forced Migration of Children and Adolescents from Latin America

“…In this way, the process of healing reaches beyond the therapy session and is done entirely in the context of their culture. This approach shows much promise in effectively helping refugees heal from trauma, but much more research is needed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach on a large scale [31] .…”

Diagnostic test accuracy of screening tools for post-traumatic stress disorder among refugees and asylum seekers: A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Several systematic reviews have been conducted on PTSD in refugee and asylum seeker populations, but the focus has been on prevalence ( Blackmore et al., 2020 ; Henkelmann et al., 2020 ; Peconga and Hogh Thogersen, 2020 ), access to care ( Due et al., 2020 ), and community-based or psychological interventions ( Crumlish and O'Rourke, 2010 ; Thompson et al., 2018 ; Uphoff et al., 2020 ; Soltan et al., 2022 ). Three systematic reviews have looked at mental health screening tools for refugees and asylum seekers, but none have tried to compare the diagnostic accuracy of tools for specific conditions ( Davidson et al., 2010 ; Gadeberg et al., 2017 ; Hollifield et al., 2002 ).…”