Mental health of Syrian refugee adolescents: how far have we come?

Abstract

Among the consequences of war, its impact on the mental health of childrenand adolescents is one of the most significant. A previous study from our teamevaluated the psychiatric symptoms of Syrian refugee adolescents living inone of Turkey’s Temporary Accommodation Centers (TACs) in 2016. Findingssuggested that mental health had been compromised in these teens. Sincethen many measures have been taken to address this problem. The aim of thecurrent study was to re-assess the mental health status of adolescents living inthe same center. A total of 76 adolescents (35 female, 41 male) aged between12-18 years (14.2 ± 0.83 years) received the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI)which assessed their anxiety, depression, negative self-concept, somatizationand hostility levels in addition to a Global Severity Index (GSI). Results>1.0 indicated psychopathological symptoms. All BSI sub-scores decreasedfrom 2016 to 2019 showing significant improvement in psychopathologicalsymptoms. The most significant change was in the GSI score which decreasedfrom 2.15 to 0.8. For the 2019 participants a significant correlation was foundbetween years of stay at the camp and the depression subscale. Evaluation toassess gender differences found that adolescent girls reported significantlyhigher scores than males in anxiety, depression, somatization and the globalseverity index. This study has shown that interventions designed to tacklepost-traumatic stress symptomology may have been effective in improving themental health status of these teens and can provide a roadmap for tacklingexisting issues in vulnerable conditions. Additionally, females are under higherrisk for psychopathology so gender targeted interventions may specifically benecessary to deal with such issues.