Institute of Public Health, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Corporate Member of Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Charitéplatz 1, 10117, Berlin, Germany.
Department of Public Health, Center for Global Health (GloHAU), Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
Glob Health Res Policy. 2024 Mar 4;9(1):9. doi: 10.1186/s41256-024-00347-0.
Refugee populations present with high levels of psychological distress, which may vary among sociodemographic characteristics. Understanding the distribution across these characteristics is crucial to subsequently provide more tailored support to the most affected according to their specific healthcare needs. This study therefore seeks to investigate the association between pre-migration socioeconomic status (SES) and post-migration mental health separately for male and female Syrian refugees in Lebanon.
In a cross-sectional study, a cluster randomized sample of 599 refugees from Syria were recruited between 2016 and 2019 within 12 months after they fled to Lebanon. Logistic regression was used to determine the association between self-reported pre-migration SES and levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms assessed on the Hopkins Symptoms Checklist-25 (HSCL-25) scale, both for the entire sample and stratified by sex. To assess the informative value of self-reported SES, its correlation with education variables was tested. All analyses were conducted in R version 4.3.
Using complete cases, 457 participants (322 female, 135 male) were included in the analyses. Females showed on average more symptoms of anxiety (Median: 2.5) and depression (Median: 2.4) than males (Median: 2.10 and 2.07, respectively). Below average SES was associated with significantly higher odds for mental illness compared to average SES (anxiety: OR 4.28, 95% CI [2.16, 9.49]; depression: OR 1.85, 95% CI [1.06, 3.36]). For anxiety, differences between SES strata were larger for males than females. The self-reported SES measure showed only a weak positive correlation with education.
This study adds additional descriptive data highlighting mental health differences in Syrian refugees in Lebanon, whereby below average SES is associated with worse mental health outcomes compared to average SES. These findings demand further research into the underlying mechanisms. Improving our understanding of the observed differences will provide valuable insights that can contribute to the future development of targeted measures.
难民群体表现出较高水平的心理困扰，而这种困扰在社会人口特征方面可能存在差异。了解这些特征的分布情况对于根据难民的具体医疗需求为受影响最大的人群提供更具针对性的支持至关重要。因此，本研究旨在分别探讨黎巴嫩境内叙利亚男性和女性难民的移民前社会经济地位（SES）与移民后心理健康之间的关联。
在一项横断面研究中，于 2016 年至 2019 年期间，在 12 个月内招募了 599 名逃离至黎巴嫩的叙利亚难民作为聚类随机样本。使用逻辑回归来确定自我报告的移民前 SES 与使用霍普金斯症状清单 25 量表（HSCL-25）评估的焦虑和抑郁症状水平之间的关联，所有分析均在 R 版本 4.3 中进行。为了评估自我报告的 SES 的信息价值，测试了其与教育变量的相关性。
使用完整的案例，共有 457 名参与者（322 名女性，135 名男性）被纳入分析。女性的焦虑症状（中位数：2.5）和抑郁症状（中位数：2.4）平均高于男性（中位数：2.10 和 2.07）。与平均 SES 相比，较低的 SES 与精神疾病的患病风险显著增加相关（焦虑：OR 4.28，95%CI [2.16，9.49]；抑郁：OR 1.85，95%CI [1.06，3.36]）。对于焦虑，SES 分层之间的差异在男性中大于女性。自我报告的 SES 测量与教育仅表现出微弱的正相关。
本研究提供了额外的描述性数据，突出了黎巴嫩境内叙利亚难民的心理健康差异，即与平均 SES 相比，较低的 SES 与更差的心理健康结果相关。这些发现需要进一步研究潜在机制。深入了解观察到的差异将提供宝贵的见解，有助于未来制定有针对性的措施。
