Assessment tools for screening the mental health of refugee minors: from preschool to adolescence

Abstract

Abstract The high number of asylum seekers in Sweden highlighted the need to develop and evaluate structured assessment tools for children and adolescents. In a series of studies, we aimed to explore the utility of (i) the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire with a trauma supplement of six items (SDQ-T) for preschool children; (ii) the Children's Revised Impact of Events Scale (CRIES-8) with unaccompanied refugee adolescents; and (iii) the Refugee Health Screener (RHS-13) with refugee adolescents. Parents of two- to six-year-olds (N = 61) were asked to complete the SDQ-T, and refugee adolescents were asked to complete the CRIES-8 (N = 208) and, in a separate study, the RHS-13 (N = 29) during the routine health checks. Focus-group interviews were conducted with the nurses who used the SDQ-T. The nurses felt the SDQ-T contributed to a more structured and informative conversation about the child's mental health. The SDQ total difficulties showed good internal consistency (α=.82). A significant proportion of children scored above the clinical cut-off and SDQ scores correlated with the number of post-traumatic stress symptoms measured using the trauma supplement (rho=.29). The findings suggest the SDQ-T is a useful tool in this clinical setting. The CRIES-8 was feasible to use, showed good internal consistency and its factor structure was confirmed. However, an independent assessment of test-retest reliability (N = 48) and longitudinal invariance (N = 284) indicated potential instability. It could be the CRIES-8 does not perform well when used with the unaccompanied refugee adolescent population over time, or that PTSD symptoms are less stable within this group given the multiple stressors in everyday life related to acculturation stress, family separation and living arrangements. The RHS showed excellent internal consistency (α=.96) and correlated with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (r=.41).