Cited by 339Migration, Health and TraumaMental Health Treatment and AccessMigration and Exile Studies

Psychiatric disorders in refugees and internally displaced persons after forced displacement: a systematic review

Open access
Morina, Naser, Akhtar, Aemal, Barth, Jürgen, Schnyder, Ulrich·2018·Frontiers in Psychiatry

Abstract

Background Protracted armed conflicts not only shape political, legal, and socio-economic structures, but also have a lasting impact on people’s human migration. In 2017, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reported an unprecedented number of 65.6 million individuals who were displaced worldwide as a result of armed conflicts. To date, however, little is known about these people’s mental health status. Therefore, we conducted a systematic review of the prevalence of psychiatric disorders among forcibly displaced populations in settings of armed conflicts. Methods We undertook a database search using Medline, PsycINFO, PILOTS, and the Cochrane Library, using the following keywords and their appropriate synonyms to identify relevant articles for possible inclusion: “mental health”, “refugees”, “internally displaced people”, “survey”, and “war”. This search was limited to original articles, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses published after 1980. We reviewed studies with prevalence rates of common psychiatric disorders – mood and anxiety disorders, psychotic disorders, personality disorders, substance abuse, and suicidality – among adult internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees afflicted by armed conflicts. Results The search initially yielded 915 articles. Of these references, 38 studies were eligible and provided data for a total of 39,518 adult IDPs and refugees from 21 countries. The highest prevalence were for reported for post-traumatic stress disorder (3-88%), depression (5-80%), and anxiety disorders (1-81%) with large variation. Only 12 original articles reported about other mental disorders. Conclusions These results show a substantial lack of data concerning the wider extent of psychiatric disability among people living in protracted displacement situations. Ambitious assessment programs are needed to support the implementation of sustainable global mental health policies in war-torn countries. Finally, there is an urgent need for large-scale interventions that address psychiatric disorders in refugees and internally displaced persons after displacement.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00433

Cites

84 of 84 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Morina, N., Akhtar, A., Barth, J., & Schnyder, U.
Affiliations
  • University of Zurich (CH)
  • UNSW Sydney (AU)
Corresponding author
Morina, Naser
Venue
Frontiers in Psychiatry
Published
2018-09-21
Volume
9
Pages
433-433
ISSN
1664-0640 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2892051851
Cited by
339
References
84
Citations by year
2026: 28 · 2025: 53 · 2024: 55 · 2023: 63 · 2022: 57 · 2021: 36 · 2020: 33 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 1
FWCI
3.47
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Frontiers in Psychiatry (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Migration, Health and Trauma
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Mental Health Treatment and Access
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Migration and Exile Studies
Keywords
mental illness, refugees, internally displaced persons, forced displacement, armed conflict, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety disorders, psychosis, personality disorders, substance abuse, suicidality, mental health prevalence, protracted displacement

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review