Citation

Buchmüller T, Lembcke H, Ialuna F, Busch J, Leyendecker B. J. Immigr. Minor. Health 2019; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

Center for Child and Family Research, Faculty of Psychology, Ruhr University Bochum, Universitätsstr. 101, 44801, Bochum, Germany.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s10903-019-00896-4

PMID

31089910

Abstract

Refugee children are at risk to develop mental health problems, which have rarely been investigated in educational contexts. We conducted three studies in childcare programs for refugees in Germany. Children's behavior was assessed by educators on site (n = 84) and online (n = 50) using a two-stage-cluster sampling and on site (n = 107) using complete samples. In Study 1 and 2, children showed elevated attention problems ranging from medium to large effect sizes, r = 0.2 and r = 0.5, respectively, and aggressive behavior problems ranging from small to large effect sizes, r = 0.1 and r = 0.5, respectively, when compared to norm data. In Study 3, children showed elevated peer-problems, r = 0.5. Future research needs to investigate whether these problems are a consequence of adapting to a novel context or a precursor of a psychopathology caused by risk factors in the context of forced displacement.

Language: en

Keywords

C-TRF; Early education and care; Mental health; Refugee children; SDQ