Clinical Scorecard: Strategies for Safeguarding Refugee Children Against Mental Health Issues: A Scoping Review of Alterable Factors for Preventive Measures

At a Glance

Key Highlights

• High prevalence of PTSD (53%), depression (33%), and anxiety (32%) among refugee children linked to multi-phase migration stressors
• Prevention requires addressing modifiable risk and protective factors beyond individual treatment, including parenting, school support, housing stability, and community inclusion
• Existing interventions often lack multi-level coordination, contextual adaptation, and focus on transdiagnostic preventive approaches

Guideline-Based Recommendations

Diagnosis

• Recognize high risk of mental health disorders in refugee children due to cumulative migration-related stressors
• Distinguish modifiable from non-modifiable risk factors to inform prevention strategies

Management

• Implement multi-level preventive interventions targeting individual, family, community, and institutional determinants
• Promote early intervention focusing on modifiable social and environmental factors
• Coordinate across sectors and settings to address complex ecological influences

Monitoring & Follow-up

• Evaluate intervention effectiveness with attention to mechanisms of change and contextual diversity
• Monitor population-level mental health outcomes to guide public health policies

Risks

• Failure to address modifiable determinants may perpetuate high mental health burden and hinder integration
• Overreliance on diagnosis-specific or single-setting interventions limits prevention potential

Patient & Prescribing Data

Refugee and asylum-seeking children and adolescents exposed to migration-related stressors

Preventive strategies should prioritize modifiable factors at multiple ecological levels rather than solely clinical treatment of diagnosed disorders

Clinical Best Practices

• Adopt a public health approach emphasizing prevention through modification of social, environmental, and behavioral determinants
• Use socioecological frameworks to design multi-level interventions involving families, schools, communities, and institutions
• Focus on early, transdiagnostic preventive measures tailored to diverse host country contexts
• Engage cross-sector collaboration to address structural and social determinants impacting refugee child mental health

References

• Joanna Briggs Institute Methodological Guidance for Scoping Reviews
• Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR)
• Global Burden of Disease 2019 Injuries and Risk Factors Study
• Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Model