Mental health of migrants who were exposed to armed conflict before migration
Citation: Mesa-Vieira C, Haas AD, Buitrago-Garcia D, et al. Mental health of migrants with pre-migration exposure to armed conflict: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Lancet Public Health. 2022;7(5):e469-81.
Language: Abstract and full text available in EN.
Free to view: Yes.
Funding sources: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (Horizon 2020—COFUND), MinCiencias (Colombia) and Swiss National Science Foundation.
What is this? Migrants that have been exposed to armed conflicts experience a higher level of negative mental health consequences. Evidence on how common this is might help policy makers and practitioners.
In this systematic review, the authors searched for studies of generalised anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder among adult migrants who had left armed-conflict settings. They restricted their searches to articles published after 1 January 1994 and did the final search in June 2021. They included 3 longitudinal and 34 cross-sectional studies (total: 15,549 migrants).
What was found: Although there was wide variety in the prevalence estimates, many migrants that had been exposed to violence before migration had mental health problems. For example, 31% had post-traumatic stress disorder, 25% had major depressive disorder and 14% had generalised anxiety disorder.
The intensity of the conflict, income level in the host country and younger age were associated with a higher prevalence of mental health disorders.
The prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder was higher in women than in men.
Implications: The authors of the review concluded that comprehensive interventions that address social and material challenges of displaced persons should be considered for implementation, with particular attention to young adult migrants who have recently arrived from a conflict-affected area. They also stated that future studies should calculate their prevalence estimations disaggregated by sex, age and ethnicity.
Other considerations: The authors of the review discussed their findings in the context of place of residence, ethnicity, gender and age.
This summary was prepared by Joly Ghanawi, checked by Yasmeen Saeed and Cristián Mansilla, and finalized by Mike Clarke.