Prevalence of Psychological Problems Amongst Iranian Immigrant Children and Adolescents In UK

This study was designed to estimate prevalence rates of psychological problems in immigrant Iranian children in the UK and to evaluate the associated characteristics. A group of 244 children and adolescents, 111 boys and 133 girls between the ages 6 to 15 was selected. The children were categorised into groups with different psychological problems by their teachers on the Teacher’s Report Form (TRF). Also, the parents and The children completed the Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL) and the Youth Self-Report (YSR) for the ages 11 to 15 years, respectively. Two-way ANOVAs using gender and age groups as factors showed that there were significant effects of gender in these subscales. Attention problems (p<0.001), delinquent behaviour (p<0.001), aggressive behaviour (p<0.01), externalising (p<0.001) and total problems (p<0.02). Two-way ANOVAs using age-group and gender as factors showed that there were no significant effects of age in the eight subscales of the CBCL; although a trend toward significance was observed for the withdrawn subscale. The interactions between gender and age for all subscales were not significant. The results show that the level of psychological problems in this group is as high as their counterparts in Iran and Achenbach''s US normative samples, if not higher. This might result from immigration stressors and the pressure of bilingual education.