Associations among resilience, hope, social support, feeling belongingness, satisfaction with life, and flourishing among Syrian minority refugees

Abstract

To date, research on refugee mental health has mainly focused on understanding the absence of psychopathology rather than on their well-being and associated positive aspects. The aim of this study was to examine the role of resilience, hope, belongingness, and social support in predicting satisfaction with life and flourishing among 361 minority Syrian refugees living in Iraq (age range = 18–60 years, mean = 32.57, SD = 10.05). Participants completed the Brief Resilience Scale, Adult Hope Scale, Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support Scale, General Belongingness Scale, Satisfaction With Life Scale, and Flourishing Scale. Males reported significantly higher levels of resilience, belongingness, and flourishing compared to females. Demographic variables (age, gender, and economic level), resilience, hope, belongingness, and social support were correlated with life satisfaction and flourishing scores. While controlling for sociodemographic characteristics, resilience and hope were associated with life satisfaction and flourishing scores. However, belongingness and social support were only associated with flourishing scores. The findings suggest that equipping refugees with positive psychological resources could promote increased levels of life satisfaction and flourishing and thus enhance preventive psychosocial programs.

Keywords:

• Well-being
• resilience
• hope
• belongingness
• social support
• Syrian refugees

Acknowledgement

We thank all participants who voluntarily contributed to this study.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Informed consent

Consent was obtained from all participants included in the study.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, MY, upon reasonable request.