Urgent need for validated trauma and mental health screening tools for refugee children and youth.

Abstract

of mental health problems in refugee children and youth is of paramount importance. A wide range of trauma and mental health screening tools such as brief questionnaires and interview guides exist. Many tools are being used for assessment of trauma and mental health in refugee children and youth despite the fact that their validity has not been confirmed in these populations. In addition to the lack of validity testing, there are contrasting findings questioning the cross-cultural applicability of diagnosis such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) [6]. Despite this, trauma and mental health screening tools are being used both inand outside clinical settings. Therefore, it is pivotal that researchers critically evaluate the utility and validity of the most commonly used screening tools. Previous systematic reviews [7, 8] have provided overviews of validated screening tools primarily validated in adults and our systematic literature search shows that only few studies have done this specifically among refugee children and youth (unpublished data). Refugee children and youth constitute an overlooked and vulnerable population. The use of non-validated screening tools jeopardizes clinical assessments and the results of scientific studies as our estimations of, e.g. disease prevalence may be distorted. The value of the results and their applicability are closely linked to the level of reliability and validity of the used screening tool. In practice, the use of nonvalidated screening tools may result in pathologization of healthy individuals or in overlooking of refugee children and youth with mental health problems and consequently preventing further follow-up and treatment.