The efficacy of psychological prevention, and health promotion interventions targeting psychological health, wellbeing or resilience among forced migrant children and youth : a systematic review and meta-analysis

There are over 40 million displaced children and youth worldwide and there is a need promote their mental wellbeing. This study aimed to synthesize evidence regarding promotion interventions to increase wellbeing, resilience, and quality of life (primary outcomes), and prevention interventions to reduce internalizing and externalizing symptoms (secondary outcomes) in this population.

The review protocol was registered with PROSPERO (CRD42022329978). Medline, PsycINFO, and Web of Science were searched. Inclusion criteria were: ≥ 10 participants, sample ≤ 18 years of age, no parental participation, explicated forced migrant populations, implementation in non-clinical context, and validated measures. Fifteen studies (N interventions = 18, N participants = 5741) were eligible. Two studies included outcomes related to wellbeing and quality of life. The remaining studies reported depression, PTSD, anxiety, internalizing and externalizing behaviours, and behavioural and emotional problems. There was only sufficient data to perform random-effects meta-analysis of depression scores. No significant effects were observed in comparison to control condition in randomized trials (n = 4994, k = 5) but a small significant positive trend was observed in within-group analyses (n = 537, k = 12). Cochrane’s risk of bias tools and the GRADE certainty of evidence tool were applied.

No studies achieved low risk of bias and certainty of evidence was very low. In sum, there remains a dearth of rigorous intervention studies investigating the effects of promotive and preventative psychological interventions on the wellbeing, resilience, and quality of life of forcibly displaced minors. However, the few eligible studies in this review indicate promise.