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Traumatic events, daily stressors and posttraumatic stress in unaccompanied young refugees during their flight: a longitudinal cross-country study
BACKGROUND: Unaccompanied young refugees constitute an especially vulnerable population, reporting high rates of trauma and mental health problems. There is a significant gap in the literature on trauma and posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) in unaccompanied young refugees who are still on the mov...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8974188/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35361239 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13034-022-00461-2 |
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author | Pfeiffer, Elisa Behrendt, Malte Adeyinka, Sarah Devlieger, Ines Rota, Marina Uzureau, Océane Verhaeghe, Floor Lietaert, Ine Derluyn, Ilse |
author_facet | Pfeiffer, Elisa Behrendt, Malte Adeyinka, Sarah Devlieger, Ines Rota, Marina Uzureau, Océane Verhaeghe, Floor Lietaert, Ine Derluyn, Ilse |
author_sort | Pfeiffer, Elisa |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Unaccompanied young refugees constitute an especially vulnerable population, reporting high rates of trauma and mental health problems. There is a significant gap in the literature on trauma and posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) in unaccompanied young refugees who are still on the move and live in precarious circumstances such as refugee camps. This study therefore aimed to contribute to this gap by investigating pre- and peri-migration (potentially) traumatic experiences of unaccompanied young refugees; longitudinal trajectories of trauma, daily stressors and PTSS; and the impact of gender, trauma, and daily stressors on PTSS over time. METHODS: This longitudinal, mixed-method, and multi-country study was conducted in various settings (e.g. refugee camps, reception centers) across nine European countries. A heterogeneous sample of N = 187 unaccompanied young refugees (78.4% male) from 29 different countries was assessed via interviews at 3 time-points during a period of 27 months. Data was analyzed via growth curve modelling. RESULTS: Prevalence rates of (potentially) traumatic experiences ranged from 29.5 to 91.9%. Peri-migration traumatization remained stable over time (b = − 0.02; p = 0.371), but the number of reported daily stressors (b = − 0.24; p = 0.001) and PTSS scores significantly decreased over time (b = − 0.98; p = 0.004). Females reported higher PTSS compared with males at baseline (p = 0.002), but gender did not influence the longitudinal trajectory of PTSS. The pre-migration trauma load and daily stressors at baseline did not have a significant effect on PTSS at baseline or on the longitudinal trajectory. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first study to document not only the high numbers of traumatic events for unaccompanied young refugees pre- and peri- migration, but also the continued traumatization during flight, as well as high rates of daily stressors and PTSS. Humanitarian and political assistance is urgently needed to curb the often life-threatening conditions unaccompanied young refugees face during migration. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13034-022-00461-2. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8974188 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-89741882022-04-02 Traumatic events, daily stressors and posttraumatic stress in unaccompanied young refugees during their flight: a longitudinal cross-country study Pfeiffer, Elisa Behrendt, Malte Adeyinka, Sarah Devlieger, Ines Rota, Marina Uzureau, Océane Verhaeghe, Floor Lietaert, Ine Derluyn, Ilse Child Adolesc Psychiatry Ment Health Research Article BACKGROUND: Unaccompanied young refugees constitute an especially vulnerable population, reporting high rates of trauma and mental health problems. There is a significant gap in the literature on trauma and posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) in unaccompanied young refugees who are still on the move and live in precarious circumstances such as refugee camps. This study therefore aimed to contribute to this gap by investigating pre- and peri-migration (potentially) traumatic experiences of unaccompanied young refugees; longitudinal trajectories of trauma, daily stressors and PTSS; and the impact of gender, trauma, and daily stressors on PTSS over time. METHODS: This longitudinal, mixed-method, and multi-country study was conducted in various settings (e.g. refugee camps, reception centers) across nine European countries. A heterogeneous sample of N = 187 unaccompanied young refugees (78.4% male) from 29 different countries was assessed via interviews at 3 time-points during a period of 27 months. Data was analyzed via growth curve modelling. RESULTS: Prevalence rates of (potentially) traumatic experiences ranged from 29.5 to 91.9%. Peri-migration traumatization remained stable over time (b = − 0.02; p = 0.371), but the number of reported daily stressors (b = − 0.24; p = 0.001) and PTSS scores significantly decreased over time (b = − 0.98; p = 0.004). Females reported higher PTSS compared with males at baseline (p = 0.002), but gender did not influence the longitudinal trajectory of PTSS. The pre-migration trauma load and daily stressors at baseline did not have a significant effect on PTSS at baseline or on the longitudinal trajectory. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first study to document not only the high numbers of traumatic events for unaccompanied young refugees pre- and peri- migration, but also the continued traumatization during flight, as well as high rates of daily stressors and PTSS. Humanitarian and political assistance is urgently needed to curb the often life-threatening conditions unaccompanied young refugees face during migration. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13034-022-00461-2. BioMed Central 2022-03-31 /pmc/articles/PMC8974188/ /pubmed/35361239 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13034-022-00461-2 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Pfeiffer, Elisa Behrendt, Malte Adeyinka, Sarah Devlieger, Ines Rota, Marina Uzureau, Océane Verhaeghe, Floor Lietaert, Ine Derluyn, Ilse Traumatic events, daily stressors and posttraumatic stress in unaccompanied young refugees during their flight: a longitudinal cross-country study |
title | Traumatic events, daily stressors and posttraumatic stress in unaccompanied young refugees during their flight: a longitudinal cross-country study |
title_full | Traumatic events, daily stressors and posttraumatic stress in unaccompanied young refugees during their flight: a longitudinal cross-country study |
title_fullStr | Traumatic events, daily stressors and posttraumatic stress in unaccompanied young refugees during their flight: a longitudinal cross-country study |
title_full_unstemmed | Traumatic events, daily stressors and posttraumatic stress in unaccompanied young refugees during their flight: a longitudinal cross-country study |
title_short | Traumatic events, daily stressors and posttraumatic stress in unaccompanied young refugees during their flight: a longitudinal cross-country study |
title_sort | traumatic events, daily stressors and posttraumatic stress in unaccompanied young refugees during their flight: a longitudinal cross-country study |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8974188/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35361239 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13034-022-00461-2 |
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