Cargando…
Paternal predictors of the mental health of children of Vietnamese refugees
BACKGROUND: Intergenerational transmission of trauma as a determinant of mental health has been studied in the offspring of Holocaust survivors and combat veterans, and in refugee families. Mainly negative effects on the children are reported, while a few studies also describe resilience and a possi...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2011
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3024952/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21219651 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1753-2000-5-2 |
_version_ | 1782196841866067968 |
---|---|
author | Vaage, Aina B Thomsen, Per H Rousseau, Cécile Wentzel-Larsen, Tore Ta, Thong V Hauff, Edvard |
author_facet | Vaage, Aina B Thomsen, Per H Rousseau, Cécile Wentzel-Larsen, Tore Ta, Thong V Hauff, Edvard |
author_sort | Vaage, Aina B |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Intergenerational transmission of trauma as a determinant of mental health has been studied in the offspring of Holocaust survivors and combat veterans, and in refugee families. Mainly negative effects on the children are reported, while a few studies also describe resilience and a possible positive transformation process. A longitudinal prospective cohort study of Vietnamese refugees arriving in Norway in 1982 reports a 23 years follow-up, including spouses and children born in Norway, to study the long-term effects of trauma, flight, and exile on the offspring of the refugees. Objectives of the study: 1. To study the association between the psychological distress of Vietnamese refugee parents and their children after 23 years resettlement. 2. To analyse paternal predictors for their children's mental health. METHODS: Information from one or both parents at arrival in 1982 (T1), at follow-up in 1985 (T2), and 23 years after arrival (T3) was included. The mental health was assessed by the Global Severity Index (GSI) of the self-report Symptom Check List-90-R (SCL-90-R) for parents (n = 88) and older children (age 19-23 yrs, n = 12), while children aged 4-18 (n = 94) were assessed using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). RESULTS: Thirty percent of the families had one parent with a high psychological distress score ("probable caseness" for a mental disorder), while only 4% of the children aged 10 - 23 years were considered as probable cases. In spite of this, there was an association between probable caseness in children and in fathers at T3. A significant negative paternal predictor for the children's mental health at T3 was the father's PTSD at arrival in Norway, while a positive predictor was the father's participation in a Norwegian network three years after arrival. CONCLUSIONS: Children of refugees cannot be globally considered at risk for mental health problems. However, the preceding PTSD in their fathers may constitute a specific risk for them. |
format | Text |
id | pubmed-3024952 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2011 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-30249522011-01-22 Paternal predictors of the mental health of children of Vietnamese refugees Vaage, Aina B Thomsen, Per H Rousseau, Cécile Wentzel-Larsen, Tore Ta, Thong V Hauff, Edvard Child Adolesc Psychiatry Ment Health Research BACKGROUND: Intergenerational transmission of trauma as a determinant of mental health has been studied in the offspring of Holocaust survivors and combat veterans, and in refugee families. Mainly negative effects on the children are reported, while a few studies also describe resilience and a possible positive transformation process. A longitudinal prospective cohort study of Vietnamese refugees arriving in Norway in 1982 reports a 23 years follow-up, including spouses and children born in Norway, to study the long-term effects of trauma, flight, and exile on the offspring of the refugees. Objectives of the study: 1. To study the association between the psychological distress of Vietnamese refugee parents and their children after 23 years resettlement. 2. To analyse paternal predictors for their children's mental health. METHODS: Information from one or both parents at arrival in 1982 (T1), at follow-up in 1985 (T2), and 23 years after arrival (T3) was included. The mental health was assessed by the Global Severity Index (GSI) of the self-report Symptom Check List-90-R (SCL-90-R) for parents (n = 88) and older children (age 19-23 yrs, n = 12), while children aged 4-18 (n = 94) were assessed using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). RESULTS: Thirty percent of the families had one parent with a high psychological distress score ("probable caseness" for a mental disorder), while only 4% of the children aged 10 - 23 years were considered as probable cases. In spite of this, there was an association between probable caseness in children and in fathers at T3. A significant negative paternal predictor for the children's mental health at T3 was the father's PTSD at arrival in Norway, while a positive predictor was the father's participation in a Norwegian network three years after arrival. CONCLUSIONS: Children of refugees cannot be globally considered at risk for mental health problems. However, the preceding PTSD in their fathers may constitute a specific risk for them. BioMed Central 2011-01-10 /pmc/articles/PMC3024952/ /pubmed/21219651 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1753-2000-5-2 Text en Copyright ©2011 Vaage et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Research Vaage, Aina B Thomsen, Per H Rousseau, Cécile Wentzel-Larsen, Tore Ta, Thong V Hauff, Edvard Paternal predictors of the mental health of children of Vietnamese refugees |
title | Paternal predictors of the mental health of children of Vietnamese refugees |
title_full | Paternal predictors of the mental health of children of Vietnamese refugees |
title_fullStr | Paternal predictors of the mental health of children of Vietnamese refugees |
title_full_unstemmed | Paternal predictors of the mental health of children of Vietnamese refugees |
title_short | Paternal predictors of the mental health of children of Vietnamese refugees |
title_sort | paternal predictors of the mental health of children of vietnamese refugees |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3024952/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21219651 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1753-2000-5-2 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT vaageainab paternalpredictorsofthementalhealthofchildrenofvietnameserefugees AT thomsenperh paternalpredictorsofthementalhealthofchildrenofvietnameserefugees AT rousseaucecile paternalpredictorsofthementalhealthofchildrenofvietnameserefugees AT wentzellarsentore paternalpredictorsofthementalhealthofchildrenofvietnameserefugees AT tathongv paternalpredictorsofthementalhealthofchildrenofvietnameserefugees AT hauffedvard paternalpredictorsofthementalhealthofchildrenofvietnameserefugees |