Ukrainian Female and Children Refugees` Health Status and Coping Strategies in the Czech Republic
The Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, forced millions of Ukrainians to flee the country. Ukrainian females and children’s refugees have experienced many stressful situations because of war, migration, and resettlement. The war-related events may cause different physical and psychological problems.
Information about physical and mental health status, chronic diseases, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, or other psychiatric disorders is important for health care workers who will be dealing with these possible issues of refugees. The Czech state will pay up to CZK 9.9 billion for the health insurance of Ukrainian refugees, according to a strategy approved by the government. Previous information about the main needs of Ukrainian refugees can prepare the Czech health insurance with adequate professional help.
Besides physical and mental health, social health is also very important in the case of refugees, even though not all of them will develop PTSD. Refugees are separated from family members (mainly husbands and fathers), and sometimes they lose close family members or friends, they have to develop interpersonal trusting relationships to get social support from other people in a host country. Children and youth refugees have to socialize in new cultural and language conditions. The integration of Ukrainian children’s refugees into the Czech school system will cost around CZK 12.3 billion, according to the government's refugee strategy document.
The main goal of the project is to investigate the physical, mental and social status of health as well as coping strategies of the Ukrainian females and children refugees settled in the Czech Republic.
The specific tasks for Ukrainian females refugees are: 1) to gather information about self-reported physical health as well as estimate any changes in physical health during the last month; 2) to get knowledge about mental health status and coping strategies by answering some instruments as The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-14); Brief-COPE (28 items); Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9); Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) (21 items); Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD-20); 3) to measure how separation from family and loved ones will influence social health of refugees; 4) to get more significant information about how was made the decision about migration as well as coping strategies through the process of transition and settlement in the Czech Republic by conducting in-depth interviews.
The questionnaire for Ukrainian women
The specific tasks for Ukrainian children and youth refugees are 1) to measure some aspects of socialization of children in a new environment; 2) to get information about mental health status using The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-14) and Children Revised Impact of Events Scale (CRIES-13).
The questionnaire for the Ukrainian children (from 8 to 18)
The project will generate benefits for the general public thought sharing information about Ukrainian female and children refugees’ health needs. Information about refugees’ health status will be useful for local healthcare authorities and healthcare providers. In addition, information about the mental health and socialization of children and youth refugees will be beneficial for school administrators.
If you are a Ukrainian women refugee, or if you are a friend or know a Ukrainian refugee, please help us to obtain information about their health status. You can access the project by the links above.
For additional information, you can contact the main researcher Iryna Mazhak: iryna.mazhak@fsps.muni.cz.
