Physical and Mental Health Issues among Refugees Survivors of Torture

Physical and Mental Health Issues among Refugees Survivors of Torture
Name:
Institution:

Iraq has been in conflict since the year 2003. This conflict has resulted in Middle East’s largest refugee crisis in over the last sixty years. Today, Iraqis have become one of the biggest refugee populations in the world. As a result, studies have been conducted on the status of physical and mental health of Iraqi refugees who have resettled in the Unites States. These studies were carried out on residents of Michigan, Texas, Idaho and California. The number of Iraqi refugees who settled in the United States during the fiscal year 2010 was estimated to be about 18,016 (Taylor et al., 2013). Due to this large number of refugees, the United States felt obliged to concern herself with the mental as well as the physical health of all the Iraqi refugees. This fact, therefore, makes the United States a major bother to other countries in which these refugees resettled.
According to Taylor et al. (2013) the most common mental health concerns associated with the Iraqi refugees included depression, anxiety and emotional distress. These conditions were prevalent on nearly 50% of the total population. The refugees also experienced post-traumatic stress disorder, which was reported among 31% of the research participants. The physical health conditions of the refugees were also associated with their mental health statuses; especially depression. Other factors such as time spent in the United States, age, employment status, marital status and physical heath rating also had an impact on their physical health conditions.

The physical health score depended on whether a refugee was hypertensive, obese, diabetic, etcetera.
The mental and physical health problems of the resettled Iraqi refugees in the United States had many impacts. According to Shannon, Vinson, Cook & Lennon (2015) the first impact was the emergence of an interpreter necessitated by the language barrier between the Americans and the Iraqis. Active care coordination for refugees also emerged. It involved strong communications, scheduling of appointments, management of cases, to and fro transportation for health providers and refugees, and the creation of systems that responded to emergencies. Also, there were direct referrals of refugees to mental caregivers, a creation of trust between the Americans and the Iraqis to help identify symptoms of mental health, and developments of trust through leaders of ethnic communities, health providers or non-health providers. Multidisciplinary care was also created to allow refugees to locate their families. Through this care, the caregivers learned the cultures of the refugees. Finally, communications emerged between referring and receiving providers, and follow-ups were made to ensure referrals were a success.
The mental and physical health problems of the refugees were caused by several factors, all which were as a result of the war in Iraq. Some of these physical and mental health concerns are inter-coordinated. Most physical health problems resulted from physical torture during the time of war. They included lack of access to safe food and clean water, poor diet, body injuries acquired during fights and poor healthcare services. The physical health problems also came about as a result of mental health issues such as anxiety and depression, which may usually lead to unhealthy habits like poor eating. The mental health problems, on the other hand, were as a result of indirect torture (Bolton et al., 2014). They occurred as a result of what happened to the families and friends of the refugees. The main factors that contributed to the mental health issues of the refugees included the death and suffering of friends and family members, separation of families, and loss of property. Apart from the theory of the war of Iraq the leading cause of mental and physical health problems, it is believed that these issues were also caused by age, physical health rating, and employment and marital status.
References
Taylor E, M., Yanni, E. A., Pezzi, C., Guterbock M., Rothney E., Harton E., …Burke H. (2013). Physical and Mental Health Status of Iraqi Refugees Resettled in the United States. J Immigrant Minority Health, 16, 1130–1137.
doi: 10.1007/s10903-9893-6
Bolton P., Bass J. K., Zangana G. A. S., Kamal T., Murray S. M., Kaysen D., …Rosenblum M. (2014). A randomized controlled trial of mental health interventions for survivors of systematic violence in Kurdistan, Northern Iraq. BMC Psychiatry. 1–5.
doi: 10.1186/s12888-014-0360-2
Shannon P. J., Vinson G. A., Cook T. L., & Lennon E. (2015). Characteristics of Successful and Unsuccessful Mental Health Referrals of Refugees. CrossMark, 43, 555-568.
doi: 10.1007/s10488-015-0639-8