[Mental health problems in refugees after World War II]

A review is presented of the problems in investigation and research in connection with transcultural psychiatry. The literature concerning psychiatric illness among refugees during the past 30 years is reviewed. On an average, the morbidity is considerable with an incidence of psychoses 2-5 times that in matched groups in the host countries. The conditions primarily involved are schizophrenia and paranoid psychoses. About 50 per cent of the refugees have considerable psychiatric complaints of non-psychotic nature and, in many of them, these persist for many years after arrival in the host country. A pronounced tendency to somatization is frequently present. Standardization of the methods of investigation and the diagnostic criteria are recommended for future research. Investigation of groups of refugees which have hitherto been poorly elucidated is recommended.