Long-Term Effects of War Trauma on the Well-Being of Unaccompanied Refugee Youth

• In Event: War and Children

Abstract

Introduction. Unaccompanied refugee youths (URY) are former unaccompanied asylum-seeking and refugee minors who have been granted residence and have resettled in their destination countries without the support of a legal caretaker. Some of them reach the age of maturity in the process. Research confirms that they have been exposed to accumulated traumatic events before and during flight (Bean et al., 2007), and that they experience high numbers of daily hassles after resettlement (Keles et al., 2015). About 40% suffer from increasing or stable high levels of depressive symptoms several years after resettlement, yet the proportion who report high level of life satisfaction is the same as in the general youth population (Keles et al., 2018; Oppedal et al., 2022). While the associations between war-trauma and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder are well established in this group (Bean et al., 2007), there is a lack of knowledge about the long-term associations between exposure to war-trauma on the one hand, and depressive symptoms and life satisfaction on the other. Such information may add to our understanding of the psychological adaptation of URY over time, and of the ways that war-trauma impact the well-being of young refugees.
Aims. The overall aim of this study is to explore the longitudinal interrelations between war-trauma sequels, in terms of intrusive ptsd-symptoms, and well-being (i.e., life satisfaction, depressive symptoms) among unaccompanied refugee youth resettled in Norway.
More specifically we explore 1) the stability and change in intrusive ptsd-symptoms, life satisfaction, and depressive symptoms over time; and 2) their co-development and cross-lagged relations, i.e., whether war-trauma sequels predict subsequent changes in life satisfaction or depressive symptoms, and vice versa.
Study population and method. The study is based on three annual waves of questionnaire data collected from an interethnic, population-based sample of 581 URYs, 82% male, Mage = 20.01 (SD = 2.40), Mlenght of stay = 4.63 (SD = 4.40). In addition to war-related intrusive ptsd-symptoms, the participants informed about their satisfaction with six life domains relevant to youth (Kim & Park, 1999), and how frequent they experienced depressive symptoms (Radloff, 1999).
Results. Preliminary auto-regressive cross-lagged analyses demonstrated that there was a low-to-moderate size of stability in intrusive ptsd-symptoms, life satisfaction, and depressive symptoms, implying substantial within person variation in the reported levels of these factors across the timepoints.
There was a reciprocal association between intrusive ptsd-symptoms and depressive symptoms over time. That is, higher levels of intrusive ptsd-symptoms at one point in time predicted a significant increase in depressive symptoms at the subsequent time, and vice versa. However, no over-time association was found between intrusive ptsd-symptoms and life satisfaction.
Discussion. We will discuss the findings in relation to methodological issues and to the reciprocal relation between resilience and vulnerability among minors who fly to seek asylum in a far-away country without the company of a legal caretaker. We also address the implications for mental health services offered to URY in their destination countries.

Authors

• Brit Oppedal, Norwegian Institute of Public Health
  Presenting Author

• Serap Keles, University of Stavanger

• Espen Røysamb, University of Oslo