Children at risk: A nation-wide, cross-sectional study examining post-traumatic stress symptoms in refugee minors from S
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RESEARCH
Open Access
Children at risk: A nation-wide, crosssectional study examining post-traumatic stress symptoms in refugee minors from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan resettled in Sweden between 2014 and 2018 Øivind Solberg1,2* , Alexander Nissen2,3 , Marjan Vaez2,4,5 , Prue Cauley1 , Anna-Karin Eriksson5 Fredrik Saboonchi2,4
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Abstract Background: The objective of the present study was to assess nation-wide, representative prevalence estimates for symptom-defined posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) within populations of refugee minors from Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq resettled in Sweden. Methods: A nation-wide, cross-sectional, questionnaire study with a stratified sample of refugee minors, aged 16– 18 years, from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, resettled in Sweden between 2014 and 2018 (N = 5071) was conducted. The response rate was 22.3%, leaving n = 1129 refugee minors (boys 53.1% / girls 46.9%) in the final sample. Symptom-defined prevalences of PTSD were measured using CRIES-8 with ≥17 as cut-off. Data were analyzed using frequency distributions, and strata-specific PTSD prevalences with 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs), were estimated. The association between migratory status on arrival (unaccompanied vs. accompanied) and PTSD was estimated using crude and adjusted odds ratios (OR) utilizing logistic regression analyses with 95% CIs. Results: Overall, the weighted PTSD prevalence was 42% (95% CI 38.9–45.1), with minors from Afghanistan presenting the highest prevalence (56.9, 95% CI 51.5–62.2), compared to minors from Iraq (36.8, 95% CI 28.9–45.4) and Syria (33.4, 95% CI 29.4–37.6). Unaccompanied minors from Afghanistan had higher odds of PTSD compared to accompanied minors from Afghanistan (OR = 1.92, 95% CI 1.08–3.40). Gender differences were non-significant. Conclusions: High prevalences of symptom-defined PTSD among refugee minors in general and in unaccompanied minors from Afghanistan in particular, were revealed. Findings calls for continued efforts to support this especially vulnerable group. Keywords: Refugee minors, Posttraumatic stress disorder, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq
* Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Division for Implementation and Treatment Research, Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies, P.box 181, 0409 Oslo, Nydalen, Norway 2 Department of Health Science, Swedish Red Cross University College, Stockholm, Sweden Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This 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 arti
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