Poster #219 - War and Displacement: Links between Refugee Children’s Life Events and Social-Emotional Development

• In Event: 3-003 - Poster Session 09
  In Poster Session: PS 09 Section - Social, Emotional, Personality

Integrative Statement

In recent years, war and displacement are affecting millions of people across the world, half of which are children (UNHCR, 2017). Children who have been exposed to war and displacement likely experience various traumatic life events, including armed conflicts in home country, perceived threat to themselves or others, and loss of someone they cared about (Eruyar et al., 2018). These stressful life events are particularly detrimental to children’s mental health, leading to PTSD, depression, and behavior problems (Fazel et al., 2012). However, less is known about the impact of war and displacement on children’s social-emotional development that serve critical functions during the process of recovering from the war, experiences of refugee, and navigating the post-displacement life (Malti, 2016; Masten, 2015). Here we extended the literature by exploring links between refugee children’s life events and social-emotional development.

Participants were 120 5- to 15-year-old Syrian refugee children (52% girls; M age = 8.08 years, SD = 2.42) who were displaced in Canada within the past two years. Children were interviewed about their experiences of five select traumatic events from previously established scales (Bean et al., 2006; Holmes & Rahe, 1967). Children and caregivers both rated critical dimensions of children’s social-emotional development, i.e., emotion regulation (3 items; αs = .59/.68), sympathy (4 items; αs = .75/.79), and trust (3 items; αs = .65/.81) using the Holistic Student Assessment (Malti, Zuffiano, & Noam, 2017).

As expected, the majority of the children reported having experienced at least one stressful life event (75%). The most frequently experienced events were separation from family (61%), witness of violence (60%), and death of family members (22%). Mean and standard deviations of caregiver- and child-reported socio-emotional development were presented in Table 1. There were no significant age-related differences except that older children (9- to 15- year-olds) reported higher sympathy than younger children (4- to 8-year-olds).

Next, relations of stressful life events with social-emotional development were assessed in structural equation models while controlling for child age and gender (see Table 2). The total number of experienced events was negatively related to caregiver-reported trust and child-reported emotion regulation., children who had experienced death of family members had higher caregiver-reported trust, whereas children who have experienced separation from family or witness of violence had lower caregiver-reported sympathy and trust and lower child-reported emotion regulation Moreover, the effect of stressful life events on social-emotional development did not vary significantly across child age.

Our results show as expected that recently displaced Syrian refugee children were exposed to multiple stressful life events, which were in turn negatively linked to children’s social-emotional development. The findings are discussed in relation to developmental and clinical theories that link early adverse experiences to child development and mental health.

Authors

• Linlin Zhang, University of Toronto
  Presenting Author

• Tina Malti, University of Toronto
  Non-Presenting Author