Understanding the mental health and help-seeking behaviours of refugees

For a range of reasons relating to past-trauma and settlement challenges, humanitarian migrants (sometimes referred to as refugees) in Australia are vulnerable to psychological distress and overall poor emotional health. However, help seeking – especially for mental health challenges – is low and/or problematic. This is largely attributable to poor mental health literacy, mixed cultural understandings of mental illness and associated stigmas. Practitioners can be unaware of this combination of issues, their invisible nature and the impacts they can have in the longer term.