New Iraqi Journal of Medicine
Volume 5, Issue 3, 2009, Pages 14-22

Somatic and psychiatric disorders and health care utilization among Iraqi Refugees and Yemeni immigrant (Article)

Jamil H.* , Ventimiglia M. , Mahmoud R. , Arnetz B.
  • a Department of Family Medicine and Public Health Sciences, School of Medicine, Wayne State University, Michigan, ND, United States
  • b Department of Family Medicine and Public Health Sciences, School of Medicine, Wayne State University, Michigan, ND, United States, Department of Psychology, University of Detroit-Mercy, United States
  • c Internal Medicine Outpatient Clinic, Dearborn, MI, United States
  • d Department of Family Medicine and Public Health Sciences, School of Medicine, Wayne State University, Michigan, ND, United States

Abstract

Background: Prior studies have reported increased prevalence of mental and somatic health disorders among refugees. However, many of these studies fail to include appropriate comparison groups. Moreover, there is a lack of studies focusing on health care utilization among refugee populations. Patients and Methods: We examined the distribution of somatic and mental health disorders as well as patterns of health care utilization among 116 Iraqi refugees as compared to 232 non-refugee Arab immigrants. Results: Refugees as compared to nonrefugee immigrants exhibit different distributional patterns with regards to several somatic and psychiatric disorders. In addition, specific somatic disorders (e.g., dermatologie and cardiovascular disorders) were found to be associated with greater health care consumption in refugees as compared to regular immigrants with identical diagnoses.

Author Keywords

culture Stress Depression Health care utilization Anxiety somatization trauma

Index Keywords

[No Keywords available]
Link
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-72449123789&partnerID=40&md5=da79451ddf8368eb0d776cbd67171c59
ISSN: 18175562
Cited by: 3
Original Language: English