Safe but broken: a critical review on psychological risks of childhood in refugee camps

TL;DR

Refugee children in camps face severe psychological stress due to deprivation and isolation, while those in urban areas deal with chronic stress from discrimination and integration challenges.

Contribution

This paper provides a critical review of psychological risks in refugee children across camp and urban settings using a meta-synthesis approach.

Findings

PTSD, depression, anxiety, and somatization are prevalent in both refugee camps and urban resettlement.

Refugee camps intensify acute distress and collective grief, while urban resettlement leads to chronic depression and adjustment difficulties.

Resilience mechanisms include hope, agency, and bicultural adaptation in both contexts.

Abstract

The concept of severely deprived children has recently been integrated into the study of refugee children. While refugee camps are designed to ensure physical safety, they often expose young residents to chronic deprivation, limited mobility, and psychosocial isolation. Conversely, urban resettlement may foster autonomy and integration yet introduce new forms of structural and cultural stress. Understanding how environmental context shapes trauma and coping among refugee youth is essential to designing context-sensitive interventions. A qualitative brief meta-synthesis was previously conducted with 984 refugees following the five-stage approach proposed by Lachal et al. Twenty-four peer-reviewed qualitative and mixed-methods studies published between 2017 and 2025 were retrieved from PsycINFO, PubMed/Medline, Scopus, CINAHL, and Web of Science. The synthesis was guided by Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model to capture multilevel environmental influences on mental health. Across both contexts, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, and somatization were consistently prevalent, though their presentation differed. In four refugee camps (248 individuals), cumulative trauma exposure, legal uncertainty, and spatial confinement intensified acute distress and collective grief, often manifesting through somatic symptoms and perceived helplessness. In 19 urban resettlement cases (736 individuals, 677 being children), refugees displayed lower acute stress but higher chronic depression and adjustment difficulties, largely driven by discrimination, social isolation, and integration. Narratives emphasized hope, agency, and bicultural adaptation as key resilience mechanisms. Environmental context fundamentally shapes refugee children’s psychological trajectories: camps amplify survival-based distress, whereas resettlement introduces persistent psychosocial strain. Policies must integrate trauma-informed and culturally responsive interventions that address both confinement-related and integration-related stressors.