War and Children

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

The world is currently witnessing the highest numbers of refugees since the Second World War. Among the approximately 30 million refugees, about half are younger than 18 years. A significant proportion of war-exposed children and adolescents suffer from mental health problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety, but there are substantial individual differences. Given the record number of vulnerable refugee children from Syria, Afghanistan and, most recently, Ukraine, it is crucial to investigate effects of war exposure on children’s mental health longitudinally. Better knowledge on the long-term effects of war is needed to assess treatment needs and inform intervention efforts. All four papers of this symposium focus on longitudinal investigations of the effects of war exposure on refugee children in a number of different settings.
Paper one describes the nature of experienced war events and reports the prevalence and predictors of mental health problems in a large longitudinal study of Syrian refugee children living in informal settlements in Lebanon. Paper two reports results of a longitudinal study aimed at investigating the development of anxiety disorders and PTSD in a sample of Syrian and Iraqi refugee youth resettled in the USA. Paper three focuses on the relationship between war exposure, trauma recall and mental health in a longitudinal study of Afghan child-caregiver dyads and features children’s narratives on trauma recall. Finally, paper four covers the investigation of long-term effects of war trauma on depression and life satisfaction in a large sample of unaccompanied refugee youth resettled in Norway.

Sub Unit

• Developmental Psychopathology

Chair

• Michael Pluess, Queen Mary University of London

Individual Presentations

• Exposure to War Events and Mental Health of Refugee Children: Findings from the BIOPATH Study - Presenting Author: Michael Pluess, Queen Mary University of London; Fiona S McEwen, Queen Mary University of London; Claudinei Biazoli, Queen Mary University of London; Elie Karam, Institute for Development, Research, Advocacy and Applied Care

• Longitudinal Impact of War Exposure in Syrian and Iraqi Refugee Children Resettled in the US - Liza Hinchey, Wayne State University College of Education; Celine Bazzi, Wayne State University College of Education; Raya Nashef, Wayne State University School of Medicine; Kathleen Gorski, Wayne State University School of Medicine; Presenting Author: Arash Javanbakht, Wayne State University

• Trauma Memories and Mental Health in War-Affected Children - Presenting Author: Catherine Panter-Brick, Yale University

• Long-Term Effects of War Trauma on the Well-Being of Unaccompanied Refugee Youth - Presenting Author: Brit Oppedal, Norwegian Institute of Public Health; Serap Keles, University of Stavanger; Espen Røysamb, University of Oslo