Immigration Detainees Suffer Serious Depression And Anxiety, UK

Main Category: Depression
Also Included In: Anxiety / Stress;  Public Health;  Psychology / Psychiatry
Article Date: 18 Dec 2007 - 1:00 PDT

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People detained in immigration reception centres in the UK are highly vulnerable to psychological distress, and detention may itself be a risk factor for anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Those are the findings of a study presented on Friday 14 December 2007, to the Annual Conference of the Division of Clinical Psychology at the Congress Centre, London, by Dr Katy Robjant from the University of Surrey.

Using established psychological tests, Dr Robjant and her colleagues measured 97 immigration detainees - 30 who had previously been imprisoned in the UK and 67 who had not. These results were compared with those from a control group of 49 asylum seekers living in the community.

The researchers found that both depression and anxiety were more common among the detained asylum seekers than they were among the control group. Some 75.8 per cent of detained asylum seekers had levels of depression high enough to need clinical help compared with 26.2 per cent of the control group who had never been detained. For anxiety the figures were 71.9 per cent of detained asylum seekers against 50 per cent for the control group.

When the results were further analysed it was found that whether or not someone was detained was a better predictor of whether or not they would suffer anxiety and depression than any other factor measured.

Dr Robjant says: 'There is an urgent need for more research into the impact of immigration detention on mental health. As far as we are aware this is the first study into psychological distress among immigration detainees to involve anything like this number of participants.'

The British Psychological Society