Prevalence of Depression in Iraqi Refugees Children Living in Kalar Camps

Background: The Iraqi civil war and conflicts since 2003, have created the largest population of middle-eastern refugees in the past 60 years. Since kids are the most vulnerable fugitives to psychological agitation during the war this study aims to investigate the depression prevalence in Iraqi refugee children in Kallar camps.Methods: This study was a descriptive-analytic study an aimed to investigate the frequency of depression in Iraqi fugitive children(2016-2017). It also tries to determine the relationship between depression and such variables as age, gender, and children s custodianship. The sample included 295 children(144 boy 151 girl 9-12 years old) . They were randomly chosen through Morgan Table. The demographic data of participants were collected through a questionnaire designed by the author consisting of some questions about age, sex, school grade, and children s custody. The data concerning the depression symptoms were collected using Arabic version of Maria Kovacs Depression Inventory (CDI).Data were analysis by spss22 using descriptive statistics, Chi-Squared Test and one-way ANOVA.Results: Findings showed that 56.6% of the subjects were above cut point and 43.4% under it. The findings confirmed the research hypothesis stating that depression is highly prevalent in Iraqi refugee children. Also there is no significant relationship between depression and gender(p=0.29> 0.05).This research find significant relationship between depression and the age of subjects (p=0.00<0.05), school grade (p=0.00<0.05) and type of the custody and the depression prevalence (p=0.00<0.05).Conclusion: it can be concluded from this research that depression is prevalent disorder in Iraqi refugee children and it has most prevalent in 12-year old children, Grade 6 children). The highly depressed children were the children without guardian or they who were under the custody of relatives. According to this research Iraqi refugee children need more attention.

Keywords:

Depression , Refugee , Iraqi children , CDI