Health-Related Quality of Life Among Unaccompanied Refugee Minors Settled in a Norwegian Municipality

The study aimed to examine health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in a group of unaccompanied refugee minors (URMs) and to investigate associations between HRQoL and potential risk and protective factors. The sample includes 79 URMs aged 15 to 20 (83.3% male; 80% response rate) who responded to the KIDSCREEN-27 as a measure of HRQoL. URMs reported lower scores on the HRQoL Index (d = 0.5), physical well-being (d = 0.8), psychological well-being (d = 0.7), autonomy and caregiver relations (d = 0.5), and peers and social support (d = 0.5), but not school environment (d = 0.04) compared to European population norms. Participants with fewer symptoms of depression had better HRQoL across all dimensions, and URMs with fewer post-traumatic symptoms and less frequent contact with contact persons reported better psychological well-being. All effect sizes ranged from small to medium. Contact with family in the home country was not significantly associated with HRQoL. Potential traumatic events were negatively associated with psychological well-being and peers and social support in post-hoc analyses. To conclude, URMs presented lower HRQoL than European population norms, and HRQoL was related to their reported mental health symptoms.