Quality of life in refugees and asylum seekers in Italy: a pilot study

Abstract

Interest in measuring the Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) of the immigrants increased in recent years in Italy as in other countries. Our purpose was to evaluate the HRQoL of refugees welcomed in Tuscany using the SF-36 questionnaire. We collected 114 questionnaires from 2011 to 2015. Our samples was constituted by 98 males and 16 females, coming from different regions of the world; the mean age was 27.4. Statistical analysis showed that gender, length of stay and educational qualification are not associated with a poorer HRQoL. Instead, elderly refugees showed lower scores; refugees from African region reported a better HRQoL than the others, and there are also differences between refugees welcomed in different cities of Tuscany. Our purpose is to continue this study enlarging the sample size and the geographical coverage, in order to have a more interesting description of the health perception of refugees welcomed in Italy.