Psychological distress is influenced by length of stay in resettled Iraqi refugees in Australia

Maria Gabriela Uribe Guajardo, Shameran Slewa‑Younan, Mitchell Smith, Sandy Eagar, Glenn Stone

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

40 Citations (Scopus)

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 languageEnglish
Number of pages7
JournalInternational Journal of Mental Health Systems
Volume10
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 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

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