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Psychological Distress among Syrian Refugee Women and a Control Group in an Urban Settlement in Beirut- a Pilot Study

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Abstract

The Syrian conflict has created approximately five million refugees. Of these, more than one million have settled in Lebanon. This project aimed to determine the prevalence of psychological distress (PD) amongst Syrian refugee mothers compared to a control group of local mothers living in the same informal urban settlement in Beirut. A convenient sample was selected from a primary care center. The General Health Questionnaire-12 items (GHQ-12) was administered to determine PD amongst women who were pregnant within 2 years of the study. Data was analyzed using SPSS. Sixty women were enrolled; 35 were Syrian refugees. All women had PD. The mean GHQ-12 scores were 7.5 and 7.2 for the control and Syrian refugee mothers, respectively. When asked about stressors, 91.7% of the women stated poverty. Syrian refugee women had similar PD as women who were not displaced and did not experience direct war related hostilities.

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Data Availability

The data sets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The help of personnel in Tahaddi made this work possible. Our gratitude to the women who were involved. We acknowledge Dr. Hani Tamim for his input regarding the statistical analysis.

Funding

Luke Zander Research Support Bursary, Royal Society of Medicine; William Longworth Memorial Fund, University of Edinburgh; K Stevenson is supported by an NIHR Academic Foundation post and acknowledges support from the National Institute for Health Research Imperial Biomedical Research Centre.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Family Medicine, American University of Beirut Medical Center, P.O.Box: 11-0236, Riad El Solh street, Beirut, Lebanon

    Basem Roberto Saab, Mario Chahrouri, Ghaith Rukbi, Jinan Usta & Reina Alameddine

  2. Imperial College London, Institute of Reproductive and Developmental Biology, London, UK

    Kerrie Stevenson

  3. Centre for Cardiovascular Science, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    Rebecca M Reynolds

Authors
  1. Basem Roberto Saab
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  2. Kerrie Stevenson
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  3. Mario Chahrouri
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  4. Ghaith Rukbi
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  5. Jinan Usta
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  6. Rebecca M Reynolds
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  7. Reina Alameddine
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Contributions

BS contributed to the idea conception, data analysis, drafting the manuscript.

JU contributed to drafting the manuscript.

MC contributed to the data collection.

GR contributed to the data collection.

RR contributed to drafting the manuscript.

KS contributed to the idea conception, design of the study, drafting the manuscript.

RA contributed to the data collection and analysis, and drafting the manuscript.

All authors have reviewed the submitted manuscript and approved it for submission.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Basem Roberto Saab.

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Conflict of Interest

the authors declare they have no conflict of interest.

Ethics Approval

Approval was obtained from the Institutional Research Board at the American University of Beirut and the Research Ethics Committee at the University of Edinburgh. The procedures used in this study adhere to the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki.

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Saab, B.R., Stevenson, K., Chahrouri, M. et al. Psychological Distress among Syrian Refugee Women and a Control Group in an Urban Settlement in Beirut- a Pilot Study. Psychiatr Q 91, 915–919 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11126-020-09749-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11126-020-09749-y

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