The mental health of child refugees from the Middle-East & their parents: refugee status and immigration detention Julie Robinson Soheyla Farhadi School of Psychology Flinders University Image downloaded June 22, 2004 from http://www.abc.net.au/news/australia/2002/07/item20020703071032_1.htm (Woomera) Copyright image deleted
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The mental health of child refugees from the Middle-East & their parents: refugee status and immigration detention Julie Robinson Soheyla Farhadi School.
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The mental health of child refugees from the Middle-East & their
parents: refugee status and immigration detention
Julie Robinson
Soheyla Farhadi School of Psychology
Flinders University
Image downloaded June 22, 2004 from http://www.abc.net.au/news/australia/2002/07/item20020703071032_1.htm
• “A last resort”. The national inquiry into children in immigration detention– Qualitative data
– from children and families– case notes of professionals (only those referred)
– Quantitative– no comparison groups
• Steel, Silove, Newman et al. (2004)– Quantitative
• Telephone interviews, in detention– No comparison groups
Objectives
• Compare 3 groups– detained refugee children (unauthorised arrivals)– refugee children not detained (authorised arrivals)– Australian-born children of refugee parents Whose parents were born in Iraq, Iran or Afghanistan
• Assess 2 outcomes– Mental health – Adjustment
• educational performance, physical health, feelings of safety, quality of peer and family relationships
Image downloaded 21st July, 2004 from http://images.google.com.au/images?q=woomera+detention&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&start=40&sa=N
*** Detained > not detained, p<.001 Covaried for relevant extraneous variables (parental education, time in Australia) No sig. differences between “refugees not detained” and “not refugees” (p>.05)
Relationship with parents Parent 3.6* (1.3) 4.5 (0.8) 4.5 (0.6)
Child 4.0 (1.1) 4.3^ (0.7) 4.3 (0.7)
Results
Explanation
What accounts for group differences in outcomes: artifact of parental distress?
• When covary for parental distress, poorer outcomes for detained refugees remain– All CBCL scores– All parental ratings of adjustment– Both sig. child ratings of adjustment
What accounts for group differences in outcomes: detention per se?
• Duration of detention – NOT related to any CBCL score
• Time since release from detention – related to 1 CBCL score
• Externalising problems r (33) = -.57, p<.001
What accounts for group differences in outcomes: exposure to stressful events?
When covaried for extraneous variables associated with group, stressful events continue to show associations with
• When extraneous variables and exposure to stressful events were entered first, group explained additional variance on only 3/15 outcome variables– externalising problems (R2change=.059**)– parent-reported safety (R2change=.033* )– parent-reported friendships
(R2change=.051**)
Across groups, how much variance in outcomes accounted for by exposure to stressful events alone (Step 1 of regression)?
• CBCL Total T score 40.9% p<.001
Internalizing 26.3% p<.001
Externalizing 23.8% p<.001
• Child adaptation Parent-reported Self-reported
Happy/sad 27.7% p<.001 8.1% p<.01
Safety 15.2% p<.001 13.1% p<.001
Health 23.7% p<.001 7.5% p<.01
Schoolwork 25.4% p<.001 18.6% p<.001
Friendships 24.7% p<.001 13.7% p<.001
Family relationships 26.5% p<.001 11.1% p=.001
Parental distress & children’s exposure to stressful events
• Correlation between parental distress and child exposure to stressful events, r(103)
= .56***
• Regression analysis– Step 1: Exposure to stressful events– Step 2: Parental distress accounted for additional
variance in• Total score CBCL 3.8%*• Internalising problems CBCL 5.2%**• Child report happy/sad 4.3%*• Child report relationship with parents 4.4%*
Conclusions
Causation• No random assignment• No pre-/post design
• Groups– Confounded with measured demographic
variables (nationality, child age, time in Australia)--statistical control only
– Differ in exposure to trauma prior to detention– Differ in current status (TPVs) – Likely confounded with unmeasured variables past