The use of psychiatric services by young adults who came to Sweden as teenage refugees: a national cohort study

Abstract

Young refugees received more psychiatric inpatient care than the native Swedish population, with the highest rates seen in refugees who were not accompanied by their parents. The discrepancy between the use of inpatient and outpatient care by young refugees suggests that there are barriers to outpatient care, but we did note that living in Sweden longer increased the use of outpatient services. Further research is needed to clarify the role that education levels among Sweden's refugee populations have on their mental health and health-seeking behaviour.

Immigrants’ mental health service use compared to that of native Finns: a register study

“…The longer the immigrants had lived in Finland, the more likely they were to receive treatment of high intensity: in other words, their profiles of treatment patterns started to resemble those of the Finnish-born natives more closely the longer they had lived in Finland. This is in line with previous research [22,32]. The region of origin analysis showed that those from Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and Northern Africa were most likely to receive treatment of low intensity: over half of them received only one to three visits of mental health treatment after seeking help.…”

“…A typical finding is that immigrants are less likely to use outpatient care [15,16,18,20]. On the other hand, risks for inpatient care, compulsory care, and coercive treatment have been found to be higher among immigrants compared to natives [21][22][23]. In Switzerland, the risk of inpatient admission was significantly higher for immigrant men but generally lower for immigrant women [24].…”

“…Some studies have found that immigrants from refugee-generating countries have a higher use of services while labor immigrants use services less [18,25]. Differences in use have also been reported between different ethnic groups [16,18,22,26]. In Finland, Kurdish-, Somali-, and Russian-origin immigrants' mental health service use has been studied in the "Migrant Health and Wellbeing Study (Maamu)" [27].…”

Hospital Admission and Criminality Associated with Substance Misuse in Young Refugees – A Swedish National Cohort Study

“…This is in line with a Swedish register-based study that found lower rates of psychiatric care usage among young refugees in Sweden (Manhica et al, in press)[37], suggesting that young refugees might face formal and informal barriers to accessing psychiatric care. Such barriers could include knowledge about the healthcare system, feelings of shame and stigma, low health literacy level, cultural factors affecting self-perceived needs and the use of healthcare[38–41].…”

Refugees in Europe: national overviews from key countries with a special focus on child and adolescent mental health

“…Another study finds that young adult refugees are more likely to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital for inpatient and compulsory care, but not for outpatient care (but the pattern was found to change over time whereby refugees were using more outpatient care the longer they stayed in Sweden). The same study also finds that refugees who settled in Sweden as unaccompanied minors "were more likely to be admitted to inpatient psychiatric care than teenage refugees who settled with their families" [29].…”