Refugees’ physical and mental health, after arriving in Sweden: An unfolding process : A Qualitative case study on the dilemmas with refugee facilities

Abstract: This case study touches on the development of refugees’ mental and physical health from their stays in the refugee facilities during and after the limbo process for a temporary and permanent visa, which in turn affected their socioeconomic integration. Seven refugees and their families that came to Sweden during the refugee crisis in 2015-2016 and were moved to a facility where I worked, were interviewed on how those issues impacted them. With the help of Egon Kunz’s [Refugee Theory] theory, the study showed that constant relocation to different facilities in Sweden, and experienced events and conflicts at the facilities have resulted in long-term health and socioeconomic problems. Such as PTSD, mental and physical recovery from occurred events at the facilities, in turn, negatively affecting socioeconomic integration. Additional research in those issues showed that other countries like Germany, which also had a large influx of refugees during that time, had better and faster success with integration when they helped the refugees with the language and societal information at the beginning of limbo. Because their interest in learning and integrating is higher, and the health and integration issues are much lower than when refugees are sometimes forced to wait at least two years, which is what some of the participants and other refugees in this study did before starting SFI, integration programs and have their own private place live in.  The temporary visa, especially with no help to integrate, caused the lack of interest in learning the language; socioeconomic integration, mainly when the person was alone with no family. Moreover, their developed health from their time at the facilities is still a recovering process.