How Can We Improve Mental Health Treatments For Displaced Refugees?

We are currently experiencing a refugee crisis, with more than 35 million refugees worldwide. Refugee mental health is a critical public health issue, as rates of mental illness are especially high among refugee communities. However, responding to this need is highly challenging as 99% of the world’s refugees are displaced in low- and middle- income countries (LMICs) where there are often very limited resources to provide treatments to those suffering.  

The project

To address this problem, the World Health Organisation (WHO) recently developed a set of interventions for refugees in low–resource settings, known as ‘scalable’ interventions. Scalable interventions are ideally suited to LMICs as they develop psychological strategies using self-help methods and lay helpers (thus requiring few resources). Although there has been a rapid and wide uptake of scalable interventions for refugees across 30 countries, more than half of those receiving these treatments do not get better.  

The effectiveness of interventions like the WHO’s intervention known as ‘Doing What Matters in Times of Stress’ – or DWM,  has been hampered by a lack of knowledge on how they work. Without clear evidence on the mechanisms responsible for good mental health among refugees, we cannot refine these interventions to more effectively support refugee communities.

This project will address a critical knowledge gap by determining whether emotion regulation flexibility drives mental health improvements among refugees receiving the DWM intervention. This knowledge will pinpoint how we can improve existing mental health interventions for displaced refugees.

The process

This project will use rigorous experimental tools (and for the first time with displaced refugees in a LMIC) to determine the mechanisms that promote psychological recovery among refugees receiving a scalable intervention.  

Dr Specker and her team will work with Farsi-speaking refugees in Indonesia prior, during and after they receive the DWM intervention to monitor the effectiveness of this intervention over time.

The potential

Findings from this project will benefit NGOs (like WHO) by providing them with the necessary information to refine their programs so that the active ingredients are better targeted. This will increase the effectiveness and affordability of scalable interventions, and ultimately help to alleviate the psychological burden of trauma and displacement affecting refugee communities globally.