Identifying resilience-promoting factors for refugee survivors of torture

Abstract

Introduction: There are 1.3 million refugee survivors of torture living in the United States today. An existing body of research with refugees has largely examined mental health, but few of these studies focused on resilience. Objective: Using a clinical sample of refugee survivors of torture, we tested the resilience-promoting factors of community engagement, employment, English fluency, and psychological flexibility. We conducted moderation and mediation analyses to investigate how these resilience-promoting factors impact the torture-mental health relationship. Results: Torture severity had significant positive associations with all mental health symptoms including PTSD (post-traumatic stress disor-der), depression, and anxiety. Conversely, psychological flexibility had significant negative associations with all mental health symptoms. Additionally, psychological flexibility was a significant mediator of the torture-mental health relationship, highlighting its potential as a causal mechanism between torture and mental health. This evidence suggested that experi-encing greater torture severity led to greater mental health problems in part via difficulties in psychological flexibility. Separately, English fluency and employment status were negatively correlated with mental health symptoms. Con-clusion: The findings from this study identified potentially resilience-promoting factors for refugee survivors of torture and contributed to both research and clinical insights in better serving this vulnerable population.