Background paper on the needs of migrant, refugee and asylum seeker patients around the globe

ABSTRACT

This background paper aims to better understand and classify the needs of migrant, refugee and asylum seeker patients worldwide, and provides background information on the subject.

KEYWORDS:

• Mental disorders
• immigrant
• refugee and asylum seeker patients
• mental health care
• needs
• worldwide

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Meryam Schouler-Ocak, MD, is Assistant Professor at the Psychiatric University Clinic of Charité at St. Hedwig's Hospital Berlin, President of the Turkish-German Association for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Chair of the Intercultural Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Migration of the DGPPN, Chair of the EPA-Cultural Psychiatry Section, and Co-Chair of the Transcultural Psychiatry Section of the WPA. E-Mail: [email protected]

Ronald Wintrob, MD, Dr Wintrob has been working in the fields of international medicine and cultural psychiatry since completing medical school at the University of Toronto, and training in psychiatry at McGill University. After a year of clinical and research experience as medical director of a hospital in Laos, followed by additional postgraduate fellowship training in anthropology and psychiatry in London and Paris, then two years in Liberia (West Africa ) as clinical and research director of Liberia’s psychiatric services, Dr Wintrob returned to Montreal, where he was a faculty member in the Departments of Psychiatry and Anthropology at McGill University, and conducted research on acculturative change and coping ability among the Cree Indians of northern Quebec. He continued research on acculturative stress and adaptation among individuals and families, and on national immigration policy and its effects on mental health as a faculty member of the Departments of Psychiatry and Anthropology at the University of Connecticut and then at Brown University, where he was also the director of the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior postgraduate training program in psychiatry. Dr Wintrob was a founding member and officer of the Society for the Study of Psychiatry and Culture, and served two terms as chair of the Transcultural Psychiatry Section of the World Psychiatric Association. Email: [email protected]

Driss Moussaoui, MD, Prof., Dr Driss Moussaoui was the founder and chairman of the Ibn Rushd University Psychiatric Centre in Casablanca from 1979 to 2013. He was also the director of the Casablanca WHO Collaborating Centre in Mental Health from 1992 to 2013. He was the president of the Moroccan Society of Psychiatry and of the Arab Federation of Psychiatrists. He edited or co-edited 11 books and published more than 150 papers in international journals. He founded with the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) Executive committee the Jean Delay Prize in 1999 and is currently the scientific director of the series "International Anthologies of Classic Psychiatric Texts". He is currently member of the WPA Ethics committee. Dr Driss Moussaoui is the immediate past-president of the World Association of Social Psychiatry (WASP, 2010–2013) and member of the French Academy of Medicine. He is WPA and WASP Honorary Fellow. Email: [email protected]

Sergio J. Villaseñor Bayardo, MD, is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Guadalajara, Mexico; Psychiatrist at the Adult Inpatient Psychiatry Service at Hospital Civil Fray Antonio Alcalde; Member of the Mexican Academy of Science, President and Founding Member of The Latin American Group of Transcultural Studies (GLADET), President of the World Association of Cultural Psychiatry W.A.C.P. (2015–2018), and Founder of the Ethnopsychiatric Section of the Mexican and the Latin American Psychiatric Association (APM and APAL). Co-chair of the Literature and Psychiatry section of the WPA. Email: [email protected]

Xudong Zhao, MD, is Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology, Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai, President of the Mental Health Center of Pudong New Area Affiliated to Tongji University, Director of the Department of Psychosomatic Medicine, Shanghai East Hospital Affiliated to Tongji University, Director of the Institute of Philosophical Psychology, School of Humanities at Tongji University, Guest Professor at Ritsumeikan University (Japan) and at the MentalAHealth Institute of Beijing University, and Adjunct Professor at the Peking Union Medical College. Xudong Zhao is Leaders and/or board member of many national and international academic organizations. Email: [email protected]

Marianne C. Kastrup, MD, Prof., is Former Chair of the WPA-Transcultural Psychiatry Section, Board Member of the EPA, Chair of the Task Force on Refugees in Europe of the EPA, and Specialist in Psychiatry, Frederiksberg, Denmark. Email: [email protected]