Mental Health of Irregular Migrants : - a Scoping Review
Heikkurinen, Mona (2019)
Heikkurinen, Mona
Diakonia-ammattikorkeakoulu
2019
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-201902011840
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-201902011840
Tiivistelmä
The aim of this study is to describe the subjective mental health and mental health problems of irregular migrants through their individual experiences, “to give them a voice”, and adduce the societal and global perspective concerning irregular migrants´ situation by illustrating the connection between their mental health problems and the human rights. This aim is achieved by making a recapitulation of their most common mental health disorders in the European level, getting insight to their special predisposition for mental disorders, finding out special features related to their mental health problems and by illustrating the most important factors related their mental health.
This research is a scoping literature review study consisting 12 articles dated between 2005 and 2016, and they were analyzed with inductive content analysis method. The analysis resulted three main themes: “Disorders of the mind”, “Continuous inner terror and despondence” and “Segregation, lack of basic security and depletion of living re-sources in individual´s life”.
The main findings were, that the most common mental health problems of irregular migrants were anxiety, depression, sleeping disorders and stress, followed by psychoses and PTSD. Also the constant fear, feelings of anxiousness and depression simultaneously, expressing mental imbalance through physical symptoms, and isolation, suggested that irregular migrants may have atypical depression symptoms compared to others and they express their poor mental health more often through bodily pain.
It was also discovered, that the undocumented status itself, being illegal and not having any kind of position inside society, has the greatest single effect on their mental health. Irregular migrants had also many obstacles when trying to seek help for mental health problems and the most barriers were related with cultural issues. These barriers were worsening their mental health, causing possibly the migrationrelated grief. It was also found, that irregular migrants own personal resources are extremely limited leaving them entirely dependent on outside help. Irregular migrant´s ignorance about their own rights, distrust, doctors’ indifference, and problematic interaction leave them easily outside information and healthcare.
This research is a scoping literature review study consisting 12 articles dated between 2005 and 2016, and they were analyzed with inductive content analysis method. The analysis resulted three main themes: “Disorders of the mind”, “Continuous inner terror and despondence” and “Segregation, lack of basic security and depletion of living re-sources in individual´s life”.
The main findings were, that the most common mental health problems of irregular migrants were anxiety, depression, sleeping disorders and stress, followed by psychoses and PTSD. Also the constant fear, feelings of anxiousness and depression simultaneously, expressing mental imbalance through physical symptoms, and isolation, suggested that irregular migrants may have atypical depression symptoms compared to others and they express their poor mental health more often through bodily pain.
It was also discovered, that the undocumented status itself, being illegal and not having any kind of position inside society, has the greatest single effect on their mental health. Irregular migrants had also many obstacles when trying to seek help for mental health problems and the most barriers were related with cultural issues. These barriers were worsening their mental health, causing possibly the migrationrelated grief. It was also found, that irregular migrants own personal resources are extremely limited leaving them entirely dependent on outside help. Irregular migrant´s ignorance about their own rights, distrust, doctors’ indifference, and problematic interaction leave them easily outside information and healthcare.