Introduction Migration is seen as a risk factor for developing psychiatric symptoms and experiencing social exclusion. In the Netherlands, The Moroccan-Dutch population is the second largest migrant group. 70% of all young Moroccan-Dutch people meet each other in the online community www.marokko.nl. Within this community, we investigated the association between experiences of social exclusion and self-reported depressive symptoms and psychotic experiences. Materials and methods Participants were recruited via the website www.marokko.nl. They completed an online survey, with screening instruments for depressive symptoms (K10) and psychotic experiences (PQ-16), measures of social exclusion (perceived discrimination, social defeat and social support), and questions about demographical information. With regression analysis the association between social exclusion and psychiatric symptoms was investigated. Results We included 267 participants; 87% were female. 27% of the sample has received mental healthcare in the past. Over 50% of these people screened positive for depressive symptoms and psychotic experiences. Perceived discrimination and social defeat were significantly associated with psychotic experiences and social defeat was associated with depressive symptoms. Social support and higher education were associated with less depressive symptoms and psychotic experiences. Discussion Our findings suggest that the online environment allows for epidemiological research and early symptom detection. Levels of psychopathology were high in our sample. This suggests that a part of this young ethnic minority population might not get adequate mental healthcare. Since this population can be reached through Internet, the online environment may therefore also offer an appropriate setting for intervention, to increase resilience towards social exclusion. © 2017 van de Beek et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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Netherlands symptomatology social distance depression social exclusion Dutchman Kessler Psychological Distress Scale 10 Prodromal Questionnaire 16 regression analysis demography perceptive discrimination human Self Report middle aged Cohort Studies psychosis controlled study sensitivity analysis social support Psychopathology Internet mental health care mental disease Young Adult cross-sectional study migrant psychology Humans Adolescent male Acculturation female cultural factor Article online system adult health education migration cohort analysis depression assessment Transients and Migrants Moroccan disease association general mental disease assessment Morocco