Abstract
Background: Psychological distress has been well identified in recently resettled refugee groups; however, evidence on psychological distress over time is not conclusive. Australia has welcomed a large refugee population in recent decades, including Iraqis who currently form one of the largest groups being resettled in Australia. Methods: This study aimed to explore psychological distress in two samples of Iraqi refugees, those who recently arrived (n = 225, average length of stay = 0.55 months) and those with a longer period of resettlement (n = 225, average length of stay = 58.5 months). To assess general symptoms of anxiety and depression, the Kessler Psychologi‑ cal Distress Scale was employed. Associations between participants’ demographic characteristics and psychological distress levels were examined. Results: A significant difference between groups, t (441) = −2.149, p = 0.0324, was found, indicating that study participants with longer periods of resettlement were experiencing higher levels of psychological distress than recent arrivals. Conclusion: Our findings have implications for both for government and non-government funded organisations who should consider the provision of assistance programs beyond the initial arrival period.
Original language | English |
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Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | International Journal of Mental Health Systems |
Volume | 10 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2016 |
Open Access - Access Right Statement
© 2016 Uribe Guajardo et al. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons. org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.Keywords
- Australia
- Iraq
- psychological distress
- refugees