Conducting a Multilingual Study Researching Traumatised Refugees Utilizing a Patient-Reported Outcome System

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Mental Health
• Digital Health

Background:

• Over 300,000 asylum-seeking children arrived in Europe in 2015, facing high risks of trauma.
• Diverse linguistic backgrounds of refugees present significant communication challenges in healthcare settings.
• Multilingual electronic patient-reported outcome systems (ePROs) offer a solution to bridge language barriers in medical data collection.

Purpose of the Study:

• To screen refugee minors for potential mental health issues using a multilingual ePRO system.
• To evaluate the feasibility and utility of ePROs in a cross-cultural, multilingual refugee population.
• To adapt and implement a system for collecting health data from vulnerable, non-native speaking children.

Main Methods:

• A two-phase study utilizing a multilingual ePRO system for mental health screening.
• Administering questionnaires with established psychometric properties and cross-cultural applicability to refugee minors.
• Collecting data through electronic surveys, with German and Arabic being the most requested languages.

Main Results:

• Successfully initiated a study screening refugee minors for mental health concerns.
• Collected data from 75 minors and 21 relatives, demonstrating participant engagement.
• Identified German and Arabic as primary languages for the electronic survey, reflecting participant needs.

Conclusions:

• Multilingual ePRO systems are a viable tool for overcoming language barriers in refugee healthcare.
• The developed translation process and ePRO system have potential for re-use in similar international studies.
• This approach facilitates essential mental health screening for vulnerable asylum-seeking children.