Quality of life among Syrian refugees in Germany: a cross-sectional pilot study

Abstract

Background More than 10 million Syrians have left their homes and sought refuge in neighboring countries, including Europe, since the beginning of the Syrian conflict in March 2011, and immigration continues to this day. This cross-sectional study included Syrian refugees residing in and around Hannover, Germany. We investigated whether general socioeconomic factors (e.g. age, sex, housing, asylum duration) were predictive factors for the quality of life (QOL) of Syrian refugees in Germany. Methods The QOL of Syrian refugees was assessed using the WHOQOL-BREF tool, a questionnaire assessing the QOL in four domains: Physical health, psychological, social relationships and environment. A total of 114 Syrian refugees, aged between 18 and 45 years, who obtained one of the following statuses, asylum, refugee protection or subsidiary protection, were included. The QOL domain and total scores of Syrian refugees in Germany were compared with a Western norm and Sub-Saharan population. Data were analyzed with the Spearman Rho correlation coefficient, Kruskal–Wallis and Mann–Whitney U test and multivariate linear regression. Results More than 65% of the participants (62.3% male, 37.7% female) were between 18 and 29 years old, and 45% had lived in Germany for less than four years. The lowest QOL score was reported in the social relationship’s domain (60.5%), while the psychological score was lowest in participants aged 40–45 years (P = 0.011). The age was significantly negatively associated with physical health (P = 0.010), psychological (P < 0.001) and the total QOL (P = 0.005). Asylum duration was associated with the environment domain (P = 0.040), the short-time refugees were less satisfied than the longtime refugees, and with aspects of the psychological domain in Enjoying life and Concentration ability (P < 0.001 and P = 0.033, respectively), yet was not associated with total QOL or total domain scores. There were significant associations between housing and the psychological domain (P = 0.032) and housing and the social relationship domain (P < 0.001). The refugees who living in camps registered a lower score in psychological than residents of apartments and houses, and the single refugees had a higher score than those married and divorced (P = 0.032 and P = 0.035, respectively). Conclusions The Syrian refugees participating in this study showed a low QOL score in the assessment of all domains compared to the normal population, especially regarding social relations and psychological; it was associated with socioeconomic factors, such as housing, asylum duration and marital status. This calls for urgent societal and political efforts to strengthen the social living conditions of Syrian refugees in Germany.

Quality of Life, Depressive Symptoms, and Personality Traits in Syrian Refugee Adolescents

“…There may be many stressful life events like adverse life conditions, problems in feeding, housing, and education in refugee children’s lives, and traumatic experiences (Kandemir et al, 2018 ). These adversities may cause impairment in refugees’ life quality (Abdo et al, 2019 ; Al Masri et al, 2021 ; Leiler et al, 2019 ).…”

“…There may be many stressful life events like adverse life conditions, problems in feeding, housing, and education in refugee children’s lives, and traumatic experiences (Kandemir et al, 2018 ). These adversities may cause impairment in refugees’ life quality (Abdo et al, 2019 ; Al Masri et al, 2021 ; Leiler et al, 2019 ). Additionally, there are some difficulties caused by Covid 19 pandemic in this period, and it was reported that individuals' mental health problems and support need to be increased during the COVID-19 pandemic period ( (Ferreira et al, 2021 ; Suryavanshi et al, 2020 ; Riiser et al, 2020 ).…”

“…However, many countries, including Turkey, were not ready to host many such refugees. For this reason, some difficulties arose in providing adequate conditions for immigrants (Kandemir et al, 2018 ). Refugees face problems in physical, social, and economic fields.…”

“…Refugees face problems in physical, social, and economic fields. These adverse experiences harm children and adolescents’ mental health (Kandemir et al, 2018 ; Bhugra et al 2011 ; Hebebrand et al, 2016 ; Hodes et al, 2018 ; Ceri et al 2017 )) and are also found to be associated with low quality of life (Qol) (Al Masri et al 2021 ; Leiler et al 2019 ). Covid-19 pandemic is another adverse event that causes social and economic limitations and may have an impact on Qol (Ferreira et al, 2021 ; Suryavanshi et al, 2020 ; Riiser et al, 2020 ).…”

“…Refugees’ Qol is associated with environmental factors such as housing problems (Leiler et al, 2019 ), socioeconomic status (Abdo et al, 2019 ), asylum duration, and family structure (Al Masri et al, 2021 ). There are also psychological correlates of Qol like depressive symptoms (Wong et al, 2012 ), psychological distress, coping skills (Wang et al, 2010 ), and personality traits (Emmons & Diener, 1985 ).…”