Resilience and Its Association with Depression, Emotional and Behavioural Problems, and Mental Health Service Utilisation among Refugee Adolescents Living in South Australia
Background. Despite the frequency of traumatic or stressful events experienced by refugee children and adolescents prior to migration and following resettlement, the majority do not experience mental health problems emphasising the critical nature of resilience. While a host of factors deemed to be protective of mental health in young refugees have been identified, there has been little research exploring the role of resilience as a distinct psychological construct. This study aimed to explore the nature of psychological resilience in refugee adolescents and the relationship between resilience and depression, other emotional and behavioural problems, and mental health service uptake. Method. One hundred and seventy multiethnic refugee adolescents aged 13–17 from South Australia were administered a survey comprising the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC), Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI), and Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Results. Females tended to have higher resilience, as did those adolescents who had been living in Australia longer. Adolescents suffering from depressive symptoms or other emotional or behavioural problems had lower resilience. There was little evidence of an association between resilience scores and exposure to trauma or service utilisation. Discussion. Fostering resilience may be critical to efforts to prevent or reduce mental health problems in refugee adolescents. 1. Introduction Approximately 13,750 refugees arrive in Australia each year, with children and adolescents comprising at least half of this number [1]. Current knowledge suggests that some of these young new arrivals may be at elevated risk of mental health problems associated with a range of traumatic experiences before, during, and after migration [2, 3]. For example, two Australian studies on the prevalence of psychiatric disorders in refugee children reported rates of 18% [4] and 32% [5] for any psychiatric disorder. The most commonly reported mental health problems in refugee children are posttraumatic stress disorder and depression though studies have found widely varying rates of incidence. For instance, 18% of Iranian refugee children in Sweden, 25% of Bosnian children, and 57% of Cuban refugee children in the US were found to suffer from PTSD [6–8]. Depressive disorders, including major depression, were reported among 17% of Bosnian adolescents [8] and 12.9% Cambodian children exiled in the US ([9]; see also, [10]); while 11.5% Tibetan refugee children in India were also diagnosed as suffering from both PTSD and major depression
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