Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Refugees

Abstract

The number of refugees and internally displaced people in 2022 is the largest since World War II, and meta-analyses demonstrate that these people experience elevated rates of mental health problems. This review focuses on the role of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in refugee mental health and includes current knowledge of the prevalence of PTSD, risk factors, and apparent differences that exist between PTSD in refugee populations and PTSD in other populations. An emerging literature on understanding mechanisms of PTSD encompasses neural, cognitive, and social processes, which indicate that these factors may not function exactly as they have functioned previously in other PTSD populations. This review recognizes the numerous debates in the literature on PTSD in refugees, including those on such issues as the conceptualization of mental health and the applicability of the PTSD diagnosis across cultures, as well as the challenge of treating PTSD in low- and middle-income countries that lack mental health resources to offer standard PTSD treatments.

Keywords: PTSD; mechanisms; mental health; posttraumatic stress disorder; refugees; review; treatment.