Elisa Kaltenbach, Maggie Schauer, Katharin Hermenau, Thomas Elbert, Inga Schalinski
Abstract
Background: Cross-sectional studies indicate that a substantial proportion of refugees have psychiatric disorders. However, longitudinal studies on the course of psychiatric symptoms and on influencing factors are scarce. The current study investigates the development of symptoms in an untreated refugee sample in Germany and seeks to identify potential predictors. Methods: Over the course of 1 year, 57 refugees participated in monthly assisted self-reports on the phone assessing emotional distress. At the same time, semi-annual, semi-structured clinical interviews focusing on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression were conducted. The overall dropout rate for the year was 23% for the assisted self-reports and 33% for the clinical interviews. Results: Symptoms did not systematically change over the course of the year. On the individual level, a reliable change in PTSD symptoms was observed in 13% who showed improvement and 24% who showed worsening symptoms. Figures for depression symptoms were 24 and 16% respectively. A higher number of traumatic experiences was related to a greater intensity of PTSD symptoms. In addition, postmigrational stressors were associated with a worsening of PTSD symptoms over the course of the year. Emotional distress was associated with current negative life events, unemployment, and frequent visits to physicians. Conclusions: There is on average no improvement or worsening of symptoms over the period of 1 year. However, individual courses vary, and thus show the importance of risk factors. Accordingly, the identification of risk factors such as trauma load and postmigrational stressors can be useful to determine the need of further monitoring and to provide appropriate interventions when necessary.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 15. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 03 August 2020.
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#2,138,588
of 23,096,849 outputs
Outputs from Frontiers in Psychiatry
#1,155
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#46,105
of 331,033 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Frontiers in Psychiatry
#35
of 165 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 23,096,849 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 90th percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 10,221 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 10.5. This one has done well, scoring higher than 88% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 165 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 78% of its contemporaries.
