Functional impairment as a proxy measure indicating high rates of trauma exposure, post-migration living difficulties, common mental disorders, and poor health amongst Rohingya refugees in Malaysia

A major challenge in the refugee field is to ensure that scarce mental health resources are directed to those in greatest need. Based on data from an epidemiological survey of 959 adult Rohingya refugees in Malaysia (response rate: 83%), we examine whether a brief screening instrument of functional impairment, the WHO Disability Assessment Schedule (WHODAS), prove useful as a proxy measure to identify refugees who typically attend community mental health services. Based on estimates of mental disorder requiring interventions from analyses of epidemiological studies conducted worldwide, we selected a WHODAS cutoff that identified the top one-fifth of refugees according to severity of functional impairment, the remainder being distributed to moderate and lower impairment groupings, respectively. Compared to the lower impairment grouping, the severe impairment category comprised more boat arrivals (AOR: 5.96 [95% CI 1.34–26.43); stateless persons (A20·11 [95% CI 7.14–10); those with high exposure to pre-migration traumas (AOR: 4.76 [95% CI 1.64–13.73), peri-migration stressors (AOR: 1.26 [95% CI 1.14–1.39]) and postmigration living difficulties (AOR: 1.43 [95% CI 1.32–1.55); persons with single (AOR: 7.48 [95% CI 4.25–13.17]) and comorbid (AOR: 13.54 [95% CI 6.22–29.45]) common mental disorders; and those reporting poorer general health (AOR: 2.23 [95% CI 1–5.02]). In addition, half of the severe impairment grouping (50.6%) expressed suicidal ideas compared to one in six (16.2 percent) of the lower impairment grouping (OR: 2.39 [95% CI 1.94–2.93]). Differences between the severe and moderate impairment groups were similar but less extreme. In settings where large-scale epidemiological studies are not feasible, the WHODAS may serve as readily administered and brief public health screening tool that assists in stratifying the population according to urgency of mental health needs.