Psychosocial support among refugees

The aim of this paper is to examine the psychosocial needs and stressors among refugees of con￡icts within

developing countries, and their group based, social support mechanisms. Systematic literature searches

of peer reviewed journal articles (nU60 articles) were carried out using the following factors: type

(refugee); cause (con’icts); location (developing countries). As refugees move towards a prolonged

urban displacement phase, needs and stressors became di!erent than those of the acute phase.While

daily stressors a!ect far more people than posttraumatic stress disorder, many psychosocial support

interventions focus only on the latter. Positive e!ects of social support on the mental health of displaced

people have been established, while the process is not yet clear, group processes and identities appear

to be important.The authors suggest, therefore, that a social identity approach can be applied to understand

the emergence of a common refugee identity, and its role in empowerment through activating

social support networks.