BIOPATH
The Biological Pathways of Risk and Resilience in Syrian Refugee Children Study (BIOPATH)[1] is a longitudinal research study with children forcibly displaced by the Syrian civil war and living in informal tented settlements in the Beqaa Valley, Lebanon. The cohort was established in 2017, is led by researchers at Queen Mary University of London and sponsored by the NICHD. The objective of the study is to investigate the complex interplay of psychological, social, and biological factors in the development of resilience and vulnerability to mental health problems in refugee children.
Background and aims
The ongoing Syrian civil war has led to the large-scale displacement of Syrians to neighboring countries such as Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey. Of the 5.6 million externally displaced Syrians, about half are children and adolescents[2]. Besides exposure to traumatic war-related events, refugee children living in humanitarian settlements are exposed to ongoing adversities such as lack of basic resources, unstable and insecure accommodation, limited access to formal education, and forced child labor and marriage. Refugee children exposed to extreme violence and daily stressors are at increased risk of developing mental health problems. However, refugee children's response to traumatic events varies substantially[3] [4], with some exhibiting psychological resilience.[5] Such variability in the response to war is influenced by psychological (e.g. coping strategies), social (e.g. parent-child relationship), and biological (e.g. genetics, epigenetics, hormones), factors.[5] The BIOPATH cohort was established with the aim of exploring the complex interplay between psychosocial and biological factors regarding the development of resilience or vulnerability to mental health problems in refugee children. A wide range of reliable and valid measures of mental health and psychosocial factors, as well as hormone levels (from hair samples), and genetic and epigenetic data (from saliva samples) were collected for the study.
Recruitment and data collection
Syrian families living in informal tented settlements in the Beqaa region for no more than four years and with at least one child between 8-18 years old at the recruitment were invited to participate in the study. The first wave of data collection (baseline) was conducted between October 2017 and January 2018 and the second wave of data collection (follow-up) was conducted one year later, between October 2018 and January 2019. Separate individual interviews with children and their main caregivers were conducted in settlements by trained and supervised interviewers. A subgroup of 134 children was assessed further with a structured clinical interview six months after the follow-up assessment. The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the University of Balamand / Saint George Hospital University Medical Center and by the Lebanon Ministry of Public Health. Informed assent from the child and consent from the main caregiver was obtained before data collection.[6][verification needed]
Cohort characteristics
The study enrolled 3,200 individuals (1,600 child-caregiver dyads) at the baseline and 2,018 individuals (1,009 families) at the follow-up (62.8% of the baseline sample).[1] About half of the children in the cohort are female and the age range was 6-19 years at baseline. The vast majority of families are of Syrian nationality registered with the UNHCR and most reported being Sunni Muslim. The caregivers interviewed were mainly the biological mother. Around half of the children had no access to education during displacement.((cn|date=July 2022}}
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 McEwen, Fiona S.; Popham, Cassandra; Moghames, Patricia; Smeeth, Demelza; de Villiers, Bernadette; Saab, Dahlia; Karam, Georges; Fayyad, John; Karam, Elie; Pluess, Michael (April 2022). "Cohort profile: biological pathways of risk and resilience in Syrian refugee children (BIOPATH)". Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology. 57 (4): 873–883. doi:10.1007/s00127-022-02228-8. PMC 8960581 Check
|pmc=value (help). PMID 35041012 Check|pmid=value (help). - ↑ "Situation Syria Regional Refugee Response". data.unhcr.org.
- ↑ Macksoud, Mona S.; Aber, J. Lawrence (February 1996). "The War Experiences and Psychosocial Development of Children in Lebanon". Child Development. 67 (1): 70–88. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.1996.tb01720.x. PMID 8605835.
- ↑ Werner, Emmy E. (May 2012). "Children and war: Risk, resilience, and recovery". Development and Psychopathology. 24 (2): 553–558. doi:10.1017/S0954579412000156. PMID 22559130. Unknown parameter
|s2cid=ignored (help) - ↑ 5.0 5.1 Popham, Cassandra M.; McEwen, and, Fiona S.; Pluess, Michael (16 April 2021). "Psychological Resilience in Response to Adverse Experiences: An Integrative Developmental Perspective in the Context of War and Displacement". Multisystemic Resilience: 395–416. doi:10.1093/oso/9780190095888.003.0022.
- ↑ Kyrillos, Vanessa; Bosqui, Tania; Moghames, Patricia; Chehade, Nicolas; Saad, Stephanie; Rahman, Diana Abdul; Karam, Elie; Karam, Georges; Saab, Dahlia; Pluess, Michael; McEwen, Fiona (19 November 2021). "The Culturally and Contextually Sensitive Assessment of Mental Health using a Structured Diagnostic Interview (MINI Kid) for Syrian Refugee Children and Adolescents in Lebanon: Challenges and Solutions". Transcultural Psychiatry. doi:10.31234/osf.io/rxbyc. Unknown parameter
|s2cid=ignored (help)
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