Mental Health in Immigrant Children and Adolescents in Northern Chile Mental Health in Immigrant Children and Adolescent
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Mental Health in Immigrant Children and Adolescents in Northern Chile Mental Health in Immigrant Children and Adolescents Alejandra Caqueo‑Urízar1 · Diego Atencio2 · Jerome Flores2 · Marigen Narea3 · Alfonso Urzúa4 · Matías Irarrázaval5 Accepted: 1 October 2020 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Approximately 1.251.225 foreign-born migrants reside in Chile, including 183.315 children. This study compares mental health indicators in immigrant and non-immigrant children to understand the mental health effects of migration. A crosssectional study of 634 students from Chilean schools was conducted. Fifty percent of the students were immigrants. The System for the Evaluation of Children and Adolescents was used to evaluate mental health. No significant differences were observed in mental health indicators between immigrant and non-immigrant children. At both elementary and secondary levels, immigrant students had higher rates of contextual problems (family problems and problems with peers) and lower scores in integration and social consequence. Immigrant students in elementary schools scored lower in self-esteem. The higher rates of contextual problems in immigrant children should be addressed through structural changes in migration policies, such as providing support for employment of parents, welfare assistance, and access to health systems. Keywords Mental health · Immigrants · Children · Adolescents · Chile
Introduction Migration is a phenomenon that has experienced significant growth in Chile in recent years, and migrants account for 6.6% of the country’s total population. According to the National Statistics Institute (Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas [INE]) and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Migration (Departamento de Extranjería y Migración [DEM]), there were an estimated 1.251.225 foreigners residing in the country as of December 31, 2018, an increase of
* Alejandra Caqueo‑Urízar [email protected] 1
Instituto de Alta Investigación, Universidad de Tarapacá, Antofagasta 1520, Arica, Chile
2
Escuela de Psicología y Filosofía and Centro de Justicia Educacional, CJE, Universidad de Tarapacá, Arica, Chile
3
Escuela de Psicología and Centro de Justicia Educacional, CJE, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile
4
Escuela de Psicología, Universidad Católica del Norte, Antofagasta, Chile
5
Departamento de Psiquiatría, Facultad de Medicina, Hospital Clínico, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile
67.6% compared to the 2017 Census data [1]. Of this immigrant population, 183.315 were under the age of 19 years [2]. The Arica and Parinacota Region is a tri-border territory, with Peru to the North and Bolivia to the East. This region experiences a constant movement of humans, and the presence of migrants is an established characteristic of the area [3]. In the education sector, this is reflected in the fact that the region ranks fourth in the nation, after Antofagasta, Metropolitan, and Tarapacá regions, in the
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