The special psychiatric problems of refugees

2012 ◽  
pp. 1493-1500
Author(s):  
Richard F. Mollica ◽  
Melissa A. Culhane ◽  
Daniel H. Hovelson
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
The United States ◽  
Psychiatric Evaluation ◽  
Internally Displaced Persons ◽  
Displaced Persons ◽  
Comprehensive Overview ◽  
Internally Displaced ◽  
The Past ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
The World

While the forced displacement of people from their homes has been described since ancient times, the past half-century has witnessed an expansion in the size of refugee populations of extraordinary numbers. In 1970, for example, there were only 2.5 million refugees receiving international protection, primarily through the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). By 2006, UNHCR was legally responsible for 8.4 million refugees. In addition, it is conservatively estimated that an additional 23.7 million people are displaced within the borders of their own countries. Although similar in characteristics to refugees who have crossed international borders, internally displaced persons do not receive the same protection of international law. Adding all refugee-type persons together, the world is forced to acknowledge the reality that over the past decade more than 10 000 people per day became refugees or internally displaced persons. The sheer magnitude of the global refugee crisis, the resettlement of large numbers of refugees in modern industrial nations such as Canada, the United States, Europe, and Australia, and the increased media attention to civil and ethnic conflict throughout the world has contributed to the medical and mental health issues of refugees becoming an issue of global concern. This chapter will focus on a comprehensive overview of the psychiatric evaluation and treatment of refugees and refugee communities. Although this mental health specialty is in its infancy, many scientific advances have been made that can facilitate the successful psychiatric care of refugee patients.

scholarly journals Global Tuberculosis Burden: Is Nigeria Losing The War?

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. ix-xi ◽  
Author(s):  
G T Jombo ◽  
Pater T Mbaave
Keyword(s):  
Control Programme ◽  
Global Burden ◽  
Internally Displaced Persons ◽  
Refugee Camps ◽  
Displaced Persons ◽  
Internally Displaced ◽  
Social Instability ◽  
Tb Control ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World

Tuberculosis, an old disease has claimed several millions of lives over several thousands of years in the past and at present is still a global disease. Although several countries of the world have put the disease under control in their own domain, the disease is still endemic in most parts of Asia and Africa who presently harbour over 70% of the total global burden of the disease. Nigeria presently records at least 320,000 new cases of TB every year and is the most endemic on the continent. With the increasing social instability in the country leading to the upsurge of internally displaced persons (IDPs), and establishment of several refugee camps, control of the disease has become more complicated.  The ongoing TB control programme in the country should also specifically target the IDPs so as to avert a potential explosion of the disease with catastrophic consequences.

The Repatriation and Resettlement of the Southern Sudanese

1972 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 23-26
Author(s):  
Louise W. Holborn
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Secretary General ◽  
Displaced Persons ◽  
Refugee Population ◽  
United Nations High Commissioner ◽  
The Past ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
The World ◽  
The United Nations

While the world press has focused over the past year on problems surrounding the creation of still another refugee population in Africa — that of Uganda's Asians — far too little attention has been directed to the remarkable though still fragile process of repatriation and resettlement of hundreds of thousands of Southern Sudanese. This population of displaced persons includes both refugees who fled to other countries and large numbers of homeless who hid in the bush during the civil war that wracked the Sudan for seventeen years, from 1955 through the first months of 1972. Responding to the initiatives of President Gaafar al-Nimeiry of the Sudan, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (HCR), under an explicit mandate from the Secretary- General of the United Nations, has been raising funds, organizing activities on behalf of the most pressing needs and working closely with all local interests to meet overwhelming problems.

scholarly journals Refugee mental health challenges in Africa

2007 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-4
Author(s):  
Frank G. Njenga
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Low Income Countries ◽  
Internally Displaced Persons ◽  
Displaced Persons ◽  
Internally Displaced ◽  
United Nations High Commissioner ◽  
Refugee Mental Health ◽  
High Commissioner

Nearly all low-income countries are either just themselves emerging from conflict or neighbour a country that has just emerged from one. According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (http://www.unhcr.org), of the 38 million uprooted people in 2003 worldwide, Africa played host to 13 million internally displaced persons and 3.5 million refugees.

scholarly journals Forced Displacement and Refugees

2016 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 439-440
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Forced Migration ◽  
Fourth Generation ◽  
Internally Displaced Persons ◽  
Displaced Persons ◽  
Internally Displaced ◽  
Palestinian Refugees ◽  
Displaced Populations ◽  
Syrian Civil War ◽  
The World

Forced migration has come to be the defining feature of the contemporary Middle East, a region that is both the source of and host to some of the largest forcibly displaced populations in the world. In 2015, 65 percent of the world's 19.4 million refugees—including the 5.5 million Palestinian refugees—as well as 30 percent of the world's thirty-eight million internally displaced persons were in the Middle East, while one out of every four refugees worldwide was from Syria. Seeking security and stability, millions of people from the region are on the move within and across social spaces that are at once strange and familiar, and in which they themselves are familiar and strange to others. In 2015, Turkey became host to the world's largest refugee population of over two million, while Zaʿatari camp in Jordan has grown rapidly to become one of the world's largest camps since the Syrian civil war began. With 7.6 million people—or 35 percent of the population—internally displaced, Syria now has the highest number of internally displaced persons in the world. Iraq has produced multiple overlapping displacements, resulting in one of the largest refugee resettlement programs of the past decade. Thousands of Syrians, Libyans, and Iraqis have undertaken perilous journeys across the Mediterranean Sea to seek asylum in Europe and elsewhere. Palestinian refugees are now in a fourth generation of exile, making their plight the longest running unresolved refugee situation in the world.

Access to Mental Health Services Among Internally Displaced Persons in Ukraine: Results from a Nationwide Survey

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (S1) ◽  
pp. S614-S614 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Roberts ◽  
N. Makhashvili ◽  
J. Javakhishvili
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Health Services ◽  
Health Care Providers ◽  
Psychosocial Support ◽  
Emotional Problem ◽  
Internally Displaced Persons ◽  
Displaced Persons ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Internally Displaced

BackgroundThere are an estimated 1.4 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Ukraine as a result of the armed conflict in Ukraine.Objectives(i) Measure the burden of key mental disorders (PTSD, depression and anxiety); (ii) examine rates of utilization of health and psychosocial support services; (iii) examine the patterns of utilisation of services.MethodsThe study used a cross-sectional survey design and was conducted throughout Ukraine between March and May 2016 with 2203 IDPs aged 18 years and over. Time-location sampling was chosen as a probabilistic sampling method. Outcome measures were the PCL-5 for PTSD, the PHQ-9 for depression and the GAD-7 for anxiety. Descriptive and multivariate regression analyses were used.ResultsOf the 2203 respondents, 703 reported experiencing a mental health or emotional problem over the previous 12 months and were also screened positive with PTSD, depression or anxiety. Of these 703, 180 had sought care (with sources of care to be given in the presentation). Therefore, 523 respondents did not seek care, equating to an overall treatment gap of 74%, (74% for PTSD, 71% for depression and 70% for anxiety). Key reasons for not utilising treatment included preferring to use their own medications (n = 176); unaffordability of health services (n = 118) or medications (n = 140); poor understanding by health care providers (n = 123); poor quality of services (n = 78) and stigma/embarrassment (n = 41).ConclusionsThe findings support the need for a scaled-up, comprehensive and trauma informed response to provision of the mental health care of IDPs in Ukraine.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

scholarly journals Some reflections on the IFRC's approach to migration and displacement

2017 ◽  
Vol 99 (904) ◽  
pp. 153-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastien Moretti ◽  
Tiziana Bonzon
Keyword(s):  
Migration Policy ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Internally Displaced Persons ◽  
Displaced Persons ◽  
Internally Displaced ◽  
Irregular Migrants ◽  
The Past ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Displaced People

AbstractThis article provides an overview of the development of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ (IFRC) approach to migration and displacement. The focus of the IFRC and its member National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (National Societies) in this regard has traditionally been on refugees and other so-called “displaced persons” – that is, people who have been compelled to flee their place or country of origin and for this reason are deemed to be particularly vulnerable. However, this focus has been extended recently, in the course of the past decade, to cover all people who find themselves in a vulnerable situation in the context of migration. The IFRC Migration Policy, which was adopted in 2009, has offered much-needed guidance to National Societies in dealing with all migrants, including irregular migrants. However, it is argued that there is a need today – taking into consideration the increasing number of displaced people worldwide and the numerous contexts in which National Societies are dealing with refugees, internally displaced persons or cross-border disaster-displaced persons – to better understand the programmatic aspects that are specific to displacement compared with migration. This is a necessary condition in view of the development of more adequate and effective responses to the vulnerabilities and needs of migrants and displaced persons.

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