A Scoping Review and Conceptual Model of Social Participation and Mental Health among Refugees and Asylum Seekers.

Maria Niemi,Hélio Manhica,Fredrik Saboonchi,Göran Ståhle,David Gunnarsson,Sofia Larsson

doi:10.3390/ijerph16204027

Abstract

Social participation plays a key role in the integration of refugees and asylum seekers into their host societies, and is also closely tied to the mental health of those populations. The aim of this scoping review was to study how the concept of social participation is described in empirical research, and how it is associated with mental health outcomes. Methods: In total, 64 studies were identified through searches in PubMed, PsycInfo, and Sociological s. These studies describe various forms of social participation among refugees and asylum seekers, and 33 of them also addressed various forms of mental health outcomes. Results: The identified studies described forms and conditions of social participation—both in the host country and transnationally—that could be synthesized into three broad dimensions: (1) Regulatory frameworks, conditions and initiatives; (2) Established societal organizations and social structures; and (3) Community organized groups. Each of these consisted of several sub-domains. The identified dimensions of social participation were also associated with psychosocial well-being and decreased psychological distress. Conclusions: There is a need for policies to enable and support the participation of refugees and asylum seekers in various dimensions of social structures in host societies. Social participation enhances resilience, re-establishes social lives, and acts as a protective factor against poor mental health outcomes.

Highlights

The global number of refugees fleeing political instabilities, war, conflict and persecutions has increased substantially in the past two decades from about 15 million in 1995 to 23 million at the end of2016, an increase that includes 5.3 million Palestinian refugees under the United Nations Relief andWorks Agency mandate
The focus was directed toward identifying empirical research that assesses a social structure and an overt form of activity, as well as the ways in which mental health has been addressed in such studies
We examined the studies that describe different ways in which various dimensions of social participation were studied as associated with mental health

Summary

Introduction

The global number of refugees fleeing political instabilities, war, conflict and persecutions has increased substantially in the past two decades from about 15 million in 1995 to 23 million at the end of2016, an increase that includes 5.3 million Palestinian refugees under the United Nations Relief andWorks Agency mandate. The global number of refugees fleeing political instabilities, war, conflict and persecutions has increased substantially in the past two decades from about 15 million in 1995 to 23 million at the end of. 2016, an increase that includes 5.3 million Palestinian refugees under the United Nations Relief and. There was an unprecedented increase in the number of asylum seekers from about 500 thousand to 2.5 million during the same period. This global influx of refugees and asylum seekers (hereafter referred to as RAS) makes the humanitarian and resettlement response challenging. Res. Public Health 2019, 16, 4027; doi:10.3390/ijerph16204027 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph

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