Mental Health of Refugees and Migrants during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of Experienced Discrimination and Daily Stressors.

Eva Spiritus-Beerden,Sara Willems,Amer Shehadeh,Fábio Botelho Guedes,Katerina Vasilikou,Antonio Chiarenza,Nina Langer Primdahl,Margarida Gaspar De Matos,Ines Devlieger,Ilse Derluyn,Elisabeth Ioannidi,Fatumo Osman,Charles Watters,An Verelst,Rocío Garrido,Beatriz Padilla,Virginia Paloma,Morten Skovdal,Rachid Oulahal,Maria Van Den Muijsenbergh,Rebecca Murphy,Natalie Durbeej,Sophie De Maesschalck ,Gésine Sturm

doi:10.3390/ijerph18126354

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic is a defining global health crisis of our time. While the impact of COVID-19, including its mental health impact, is increasingly being documented, there remain important gaps regarding the specific consequences of the pandemic on particular population groups, including refugees and migrants. This study aims to uncover the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of refugees and migrants worldwide, disentangling the possible role of social and daily stressors, i.e., experiences of discrimination and daily living conditions. Descriptive analysis and structural equation modeling were used to analyze the responses of N = 20,742 refugees and migrants on the self-reporting global ApartTogether survey. Survey findings indicated that the mental health of refugees and migrants during the COVID-19 pandemic was significantly impacted, particularly for certain subgroups, (i.e., insecure housing situation and residence status, older respondents, and females) who reported experiencing higher levels of increased discrimination and increases in daily life stressors. There is a need to recognize the detrimental mental health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on particular refugee and migrant groups and to develop interventions that target their unique needs.

Highlights

Since the beginning of 2020, the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been dominating the world
The current study focuses on four different parts of the ApartTogether survey, sociodemographic characteristics, mental health, daily stressors and social well-being
The same tendencies are found within the different housing situations, where a higher percentage of respondents that are living in more precarious circumstances report a deterioration in their experiences regarding mental health, daily stressors, and discrimination since the pandemic began

Summary

Introduction

Since the beginning of 2020, the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been dominating the world. Looking back on previous epidemics and pandemics (e.g., Ebola, Zika, HIV), numerous studies have documented a range of negative mental health outcomes linked to the viruses and diseases, such as experiences of depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress, affecting both patients and their families [2,3,4]. A study on the mental health impact of the Ebola epidemic on the general population found that increased symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and anxiety are common, even one year after the outbreak [5]. Three years after the SARS-CoV-1 outbreak in China, higher levels of depressive symptoms and alcohol dependence have been reported, especially within the populations that were quarantined or were in high-exposure areas [8]

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