Mental health screening and assessment for children who are displaced forcibly
Citation: Verhagen IL, Noom MJ, Lindauer RJ, et al. Mental health screening and assessment tools for forcibly displaced children: a systematic review. European Journal of Psychotraumatology. 2022;13(2):2126468.
Language: Abstract available in EN, ES, and ZH. Full text available in EN.
Free to view: Yes.
Funding sources: Nothing noted.
What is this? A large proportion of people who are displaced forcibly are under the age of 18 years. Forcible displacement is a stressful event that affects mental health.
In this systematic review, the authors searched for articles on the measurement properties of instruments to assess the mental health of children who were displaced forcibly. They searched in August 2019 without restrictions by date or language, and included 27 articles. This systematic review was registered with PROSPERO, number CRD42020150367.
What was found: There was a scarcity of reliable, validated instruments to assess mental health in forcibly displaced youth and younger children. The authors did not recommend a core set of questionnaires, but did suggest screening tools such as the Child Behaviour Checklist and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire for behavioural issues, Children’s Revised Impact of Event Scale for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and the Depression Self Rating Scale for depression in forcibly displaced children and youth. The Child and Adolescent Trauma Screen was suggested for the diagnosis of PTSD.
Implications: The authors of the review stated that more research is needed to establish cross-cultural validity and to provide optimal cut-off scores for children and adolescents.
Other considerations: The authors of the review discussed their findings in the context of culture, language, and age.
This summary was prepared by Joly Ghanawi, checked by Sneha Bhadti, and finalized by William Summerskill.