Common Threads: Improving the Mental Health of Bhutanese Refugee Women Through Shared Learning

Abstract

Mental health disorders such as depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are disproportionately experienced by refugees who have often witnessed traumatic events in the process of fleeing their homelands. For many refugees these problems persist even after they have escaped the threat of persecution and physical harm through resettlement in a host country. The present study examined the effect of a group-based financial education program for Bhutanese refugee women who had been recently resettled in the United States. Participants were divided into three groups, two that were provided a version of the intervention and one that served as a control. Results from pre/post and follow-up assessments indicate that participants in both intervention groups experienced significantly less depression, anxiety, somatization, and PTSD symptoms at posttest and that these improvements in mental health status persisted at 3-month follow-up. Control participants' mental health symptoms became more severe over time. These results suggest that a structured group-based educational intervention can have a positive impact on the mental health of recently resettled refugees. Further, these results provide alarming evidence that without intervention, recently resettled refugees may actually experience declines in mental health status over time in their host country.