It's time to focus on mental health strategies that lean into refugees' strengths, UNSW psychologists say.
A systematic review led by UNSW Professor Angela Nickerson has identified several strong factors that are associated with better mental health outcomes among refugee adults.
"While exposure to persecution, war and displacement is associated with high rates of psychological disorders, such as PTSD and depression, remarkably the majority of refugees, despite having gone through very difficult experiences, don't go on to develop a psychological disorder," says Prof. Nickerson, Director of the Refugee Trauma and Recovery Program at UNSW's School of Psychology.
Despite this, previous research has focused on trying to understand factors that predict psychopathology or psychological distress, rather than factors that predict wellbeing or resilience.
"More recently, however, there has been a movement towards a strengths-based approach in mental health, particularly in the refugee space, and we wanted to look at what research was out there," says Prof. Nickerson.
The paper, out this week in Nature Mental Health, is the first systematic review to focus on factors contributing to better mental health in adult refugees.
To conduct the review, researchers searched four databases for relevant studies. They screened thousands of studies, 174 of which met the study criteria. 81% of the included papers were undertaken in refugees living in high-income countries (HICs) and 19% in lower-and-middle income countries (LMICs).
"The lack of research looking at predictors of good mental health highlighted the deficit focus of so much research into refugee mental health," says Prof. Nickerson. She also noted that though 75% of the world's refugees live in LMICs, most of the research took place in HICs.
"It underscores a real gap in refugee research," says Prof. Nickerson.
