Mental health literacy of resettled Iraqi refugees in Australia: knowledge about posttraumatic stress disorder and beliefs about helpfulness of interventions

BMC Psychiatry

Anthony Francis Jorm⁶  Sanja Lujic¹  Diana Milosevic⁵  Mitchell Smith²  Maria Gabriela Uribe Guajardo³  Yaser Mohammad³  Elise Bussion³  Jonathan Mond⁴  Shameran Slewa-Younan³ 

[1] Centre for Health Research, School of Medicine, The University of Western Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia;New South Wales Refugee Health Service, Liverpool, NSW, Australia;Mental Health, School of Medicine, University of Western Sydney, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith South DC, Sydney, NSW, Australia;Department of Psychology, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia;South Western Sydney Local Health District Eastern Campus, Liverpool Hospital, Liverpool, NSW, Australia;Centre for Mental Health, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Vic, Australia

关键词: attitudes;    Help-seeking;    Iraqi refugees;    Posttraumatic stress disorder;    Mental health literacy;   

Others  :  1092288
DOI  :  10.1186/s12888-014-0320-x

 received in 2014-07-22, accepted in 2014-11-03,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

Resettled refugees are a particularly vulnerable group. They have very high levels of mental health problems, in particular, trauma-related disorders, but very low uptake of mental health care. Evidence suggests that poor “mental health literacy”, namely, poor knowledge and understanding of the nature and treatment of mental health problems is a major factor in low or inappropriate treatment-seeking among individuals with mental health problems. This study used a culturally adapted Mental Health Literacy Survey method to determine knowledge of, and beliefs about, helpfulness of treatment interventions and providers for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) amongst resettled Iraqi refugees.

Methods

225 resettled Iraqi refugees in Western Sydney attending the Adult Migrant English Program (AMEP), federally funded English language tuition, were surveyed. A vignette of a fictional character meeting diagnostic criteria for PTSD was presented followed by the Mental Health Literacy Survey. PTSD symptomology was measured using the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire part IV (HTQ part IV), with Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10) used to measure levels of general psychological distress.

Results

Only 14.2% of participants labelled the problem as PTSD, with “a problem with fear” being the modal response (41.8%). A total of 84.9% respondents indicated that seeing a psychiatrist would be helpful, followed by reading the Koran or Bible selected by 79.2% of those surveyed. There was some variation in problem recognition and helpfulness of treatment, most notably influenced by the length of resettlement in Australia of the respondents.

Conclusions

These findings have important implications for the design and implementation of mental health promotion and treatment programs for resettled refugees and those who work with them.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Slewa-Younan et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

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