Refugee children have fewer contacts to psychiatric healthcare services: an analysis of a subset of refugee children compared to Danish-born peers

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Web End = Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol (2016) 51:11251136 DOI 10.1007/s00127-016-1260-1

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Refugee children have fewer contacts to psychiatric healthcare services: an analysis of a subset of refugee children compared to Danish-born peers

Amina Barghadouch1 Maria Kristiansen1 Signe Smith Jervelund1

Anders Hjern2,3 Edith Montgomery4 Marie Norredam1,5

Received: 9 July 2014 / Accepted: 15 June 2016 / Published online: 22 June 2016 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2016

AbstractPurpose Studies show a high level of mental health problems among refugee children. This study examined whether a subset of refugee children living in Denmark accessed psychiatric healthcare services more than those born in the country.

Methods This study compared 24,427 refugee children from Asia, The Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa and former Yugoslavia, who obtained residency in Denmark between 1 January 1993 and 31 December 2010 with 146,562 Danish-born children, matched 1:6 on age and sex. The study looked at contacts with psychiatric hospitals as well as psychologists and psychiatrists in private practice. Results Between 1 January 1996 and 30 June 2012, 3.5 % of the refugee children accessed psychiatric healthcare services compared to 7.7 % of the Danish-born children. The rate ratio of having any rst-time psychiatric contact was 0.42 (95 % CI 0.400.45) among refugee boys and0.35 (95 % CI 0.330.37) among refugee girls, compared

to Danish-born children. Figures were similar for those accessing private psychologists or psychiatrists, emergency room, inpatient and outpatient services.

Conclusions Refugee children used fewer psychiatric healthcare services than Danish-born children. This may indicate that refugee children experience barriers in accessing psychiatric healthcare systems and do not receive adequate assessment of their mental health and subsequent referral to specialist services.

Keywords Psychiatric contacts Refugee children

Registry-based Healthcare utilization Migrant

Introduction

There are about 15.4 million refugees across the world and almost half of these are children [1]. Studies have shown these children are particularly vulnerable to mental health problems [29], with problems identied among 3167 % of asylum-seeking children and 2246 % of refugee children with residency in Denmark and Sweden [35]. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and anxiety are the main reasons that refugee children have higher levels of mental health problems than the general population [6]. Refugee childrens vulnerability is related to the inuences of their...