Identifies the major determinants of mental health of refugee children. Study subjects were 63 young children from Chile and from the Middle East (Lebanon, Turkey, and Iran) who had recently resettled in Stockholm, Sweden. The survey instrument covered different experiences of violence, family stress, social situation in exile, and mental health. Key findings included that about two-thirds of the children had experienced events of political violence, such as separation from their parents because of the violence; the parents of 6 children, all Chilean, divorced within a year and a half of living in exile; and half the children endured poor mental health. Data on family stress and mental health should be interpreted cautiously because refugee children in exile are particularly sensitive to stressors in the family, with the effect of divorce and psychiatric disorders in parents being magnified. Nevertheless, signs of poor mental health not only were quite common among the refugee children, but also did not improve over time during the first 17 to 19 months of exile. The long-term effects of political violence in the home country and stress in the family sphere in exile were strongly correlated with children’s poor mental health.
