Journal article
Depression, violence, and socioeconomic outcomes among refugees in East Africa: evidence from a multi-country representative survey
- Abstract:
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Background: Existing research on refugee mental health is heavily skewed towards refugees in highincome countries, even though most refugees (83%) are hosted in low- and middle-income countries. This problem is further compounded by the unrepresentativeness of samples, small sample sizes, and low response rates.
Objective: To present representative findings on the prevalence and correlates of depression among different refugee sub-groups in East Africa.
Methods: We conducted a multi-country representative survey of refugee and host populations in urban and camp contexts in Kenya, Uganda, and Ethiopia (n=15,915). We compared the prevalence of depression between refugee and host populations and relied on regression analysis to explore the association between violence, depression, and socioeconomic outcomes.
Findings: We found a high prevalence of elevated depressive symptoms (31%, 95% CI 28% to 35%) and functional impairment (62%, 95% CI 58% to 66%) among the refugee population, which was significantly higher than that found in the host population (10% for depressive symptoms, 95% CI 8% to 13%; and 25% for functional impairment, 95% CI 22% to 28%) (p-values < 0·001). Further, we observed a dose-response relationship between exposure to violence and mental illness. Lastly, high depressive symptoms and functional impairment were associated with worse socioeconomic outcomes.
Conclusion: Our results highlight that refugees in East-Africa – particularly those exposed to violence and extended exile periods – are disproportionately affected by depression, which may also hinder their socioeconomic integration.
Clinical implications: Given the high prevalence of depression among refugees in East Africa, our results underline the need for scalable interventions that can promote refugees’ well-being.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 1.5MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1136/bmjment-2023-300773
Authors
- Publisher:
- BMJ Publishing Group
- Journal:
- BMJ Mental Health More from this journal
- Volume:
- 26
- Issue:
- 1
- Article number:
- e300773
- Publication date:
- 2023-08-18
- Acceptance date:
- 2023-07-28
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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2755-9734
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1497523
- Local pid:
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pubs:1497523
- Deposit date:
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2023-07-31
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Pozuelo et al
- Copyright date:
- 2023
- Rights statement:
- © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2023. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. Published by BMJ. This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
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