Psychological impact on children and families of middle east Workers

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Many Sri Lankans work in the Middle East leaving behind their children and spouses. This may lead to many psycho-social problems. OBJECTIVES: 1. Evaluate the association between behavioural symptoms of children and the Middle East employment of parents. 2. Detect the psycho-social impact on the remaining partner. METHOD: All consecutive children (n=88) who were admitted to the Professorial Paediatric Unit, Ragama Hospital, whose parents were employed in the Middle East were screened using a validated behavioural check list to detect behavioural problems in children over a period of 15 months from July 1996. Age- and sex-matched controls were used from the community (n=I55). Chi-squared test was used for statistical analysis. RESULTS: Following behavioural problems (equivalents) were associated with children whose parents were in the Middle East: avoiding people, weight loss, irritability, unacceptable tempertantrums and aggressiveness, sleep disturbances, social withdrawal, emergence of phobias, overactivity, poor school performances (p<0.01), and anorexia (p=0.02). The association of truancy was not significant (p=0.4). Amongst the remaining spouse (father), substance abuse (alcohol, cigarette and heroin) was significant (p<0.05) compared with the control. In families of Middle East workers, men were poorly educated (up to Grade 5) (p<0.05) compared with the control. CONCLUSIONS: This study shows that there was a significant relationship between behavioural equivalents of either depressive illness or emotional disorder of children whose parents were employed in the Middle East. Furthermore, the remaining spouse (father) tended to misuse substances. The majority of men in those families were poorly educated.