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Edith Montgomery

Edith Montgomery
Danish Institute for Migration Ethnicity and Health · Department of Public Health Copenhagen University

PhD, DMSc

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53
Publications
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2,647
Citations

Publications

Publications (53)
Article
Full-text available
Background The number of people fleeing persecution and regional conflicts is rising. Western countries have applied increasingly stringent measures to discourage those seeking asylum from entering their country, amongst them, to confine asylum seekers in detention facilities. Clinicians have expressed concerns over the mental health impact of dete...
Article
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Refugee children in the Nordic countries have been reported to perform poorly in school and carry a high burden of familial posttraumatic stress. The present study aimed to investigate the impact of maternal and paternal posttraumatic stress on the school performance of refugee children. We used national register data on school grades at age 15–16...
Article
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Parental psychiatric morbidity related to experiences of war and trauma has been associated with adverse psychological outcomes for children. The aim of this study was to investigate parental post-traumatic stress in relation to psychiatric care utilization among children of refugees with particular attention on the child’s own refugee status, sex...
Article
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Cambridge Core - Psychiatry and Clinical Psychology - Working with Refugee Families - edited by Lucia De Haene
Article
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The field of resilience research lacks conceptualizations of resilience that better reflect the coercive conditions, contexts and experiences of human beings who face life-threaten­ing adversity. The article provides historic context to definitions of resilience and under­ lines how resilience, when defined as an absence of psychopathology, is too...
Article
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the defining characteristics of an interdisciplinary culturally sensitive approach to family therapy with traumatized refugee families affected by family violence. Furthermore, the paper aims to explore the mechanisms of change as seen from the perspective of the therapists. Design/methodology/approa...
Article
Research suggests that a parental trauma history may increase the risk of family violence and have a negative impact on parent/child dyadic functioning and on children’s psychosocial adjustment. This study aimed at exploring mother/child dyadic functioning, and symptom levels in mothers and children’s psychosocial adjustment in a sample of refugee...
Article
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Aim: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in parents can have severe consequences also for their children. Prevalence of PTSD is high among refugees. Refugee children have been reported to perform poorly in school. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of PTSD in refugee and native Swedish parents on children’s school performance and...
Article
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Style of family communication is considered important in the transgenerational transmission of trauma. This study had three aims: first, to identify the contents of family communication about past national trauma; second, to examine how parents’ current war trauma is associated with transgenerational communication; and third, to analyze the associa...
Article
Objectives To review the empirical evidence of a potential association between parental trauma and parental child abuse. Methods Following PRISMA guidelines, 4645 publications were identified through a systematic search in PubMed, PsycINFO and Cochrane. The final number of publications included was 15. Results The prevalence of child abuse was fo...
Article
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of family functioning in the transgenerational transmission of trauma in a sample of 30 refugee families with traumatized parents and children without a history of direct trauma exposure from the Middle East. Design/methodology/approach Based on qualitative analyses of interview material, fa...
Article
The current systematic review summarizes the evidence from studies examining the risk and protective factors associated with family related violence in refugee families. Data included 15 peer-reviewed qualitative and quantitative studies. In order to gain an overview of the identified risk and protective factors an ecological model was used to stru...
Article
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This qualitative study investigates what, according to 36 former forcibly recruited women and men, enabled them to “keep on going” during and after their forced recruitment in the twenty-year-long civil war in northern Uganda. Furthermore, the study conveys the ways most of the former forcibly recruited kept on going and today cope with ongoing war...
Article
Background: : It is estimated that children below 18 years constitute 50% of the refugee population worldwide, which is the highest figure in a decade. Due to conflicts like the Syrian crises, children are continuously exposed to traumatic events. Trauma exposure can cause mental health problems that may in turn increase the risk of morbidity and...
Article
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Purpose Studies show a high level of mental health problems among refugee children. This study examined whether a subset of refugee children living in Denmark accessed psychiatric healthcare services more than those born in the country. Methods This study compared 24,427 refugee children from Asia, The Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa and former Yug...
Article
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Objectives This review assesses the evidence about the effects of detention on the mental and physical health and social functioning of asylum seekers. Method and Analysis We followed Campbell Collaboration guidelines to conduct a systematic review. Meta-analytic methods were used to quantitatively synthesize the study results. Results Primary st...
Article
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This study explores the transmission of trauma in 30 Middle Eastern refugee families in Denmark, where one or both parents were referred for treatment of PTSD symptoms and had non-traumatized children aged 4-9 years. The aim of the study was to explore potential risk and protective factors by examining the association between intra-family communica...
Article
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This Campbell systematic review examines the impacts of on health, including mental health (PTSD, anxiety and depression), physical health and social functioning, of confining asylum seekers in detention centres. The review includes nine studies from the UK, Japan, Canada, and Australia. Detention has a negative impact on the mental health of asylu...
Article
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This systematic review aimed to explore the effects of different degrees of parental disclosure of traumatic material from the past on the psychological well-being of children in refugee families. A majority of studies emphasize the importance of the timing of disclosure and the manner in which it takes place, rather than the effects of open commun...
Conference Paper
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Background: Studies show a high level of psychiatric morbidity among asylum-seeking children and resettled refugee children. However, most of these findings are based on small populations and do not compare with local-born children. Our aim was to study resettled refugee children’s contacts to psychiatric healthcare in comparison with their native...
Article
Although forced migration research on refugee family functioning clearly points to the potential breakdown of parental availability and responsiveness in the context of cumulative migration stressors, studies exploring attachment security in refugee children are surprisingly lacking so far. The authors report their findings from a 2-site, small-sca...
Conference Paper
Organized Violence and Exile: The Experience of Families from the Middle East? Principal investigator: Edith Montgomery Presenter: Anders Foldspang Based on data from a baseline study including 311 refugee children from the Middle East, aged 3-15 years at arrival in Denmark, and a follow-up study of 131 of the same children, the role of family...
Article
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The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child was ratified by Denmark in 1991 but never incorporated into Danish legislation; instead the State party has chosen a stepwise implementation in legal and social praxis. However, this process mirrors a remarkable reluctance to approve the Convention as a legitimate part of Danish legislation,...
Article
To review evidence of trauma and exile-related mental health in young refugees from the Middle East. A review of four empirical studies: i) a qualitative study of 11 children from torture surviving families, ii) a cohort study of 311 3-15-year-old asylum-seeking children, iii) a qualitative study of 14 members of torture surviving families and iv)...
Article
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The aim of the present study was to assess and understand the long-term trajectory of psychological problems among young Middle Eastern refugees in Denmark. Participants were 131 young refugees from the Middle East (76 girls, 55 boys; mean age = 15.3 years) from 67 families. They were assessed first on arrival in Denmark in 1992-1993 and again 8-9...
Conference Paper
Aims: This is a case study of conflict epidemiology with an initial effort to assess organized and political violence (OPV) and human rights violations at the population level in Bangladesh. Background: Since 1972, ruling parties in Bangladesh have systematically used torture/inhuman treatment against political opponents and criminals. Methods:...
Article
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The ruling parties in Bangladesh have systematically used violence against political opponents and criminals. It is essential to 1) determine the magnitude and burden of organised crime and political violence (OPV) and human rights violations in the affected community, and to 2) identify the risk factors and key indicators for developing effective...
Article
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Refugees have often been exposed to torture in their countries of origin. A core issue is the resulting multifaceted presentation of somatic, psychological and social problems in the same individual, leading to severe activity limitations and participation restrictions. An international conference, "Rehabilitating Torture Survivors", was organized...
Article
The pre- and post-displacement factors associated with psychological problems among young refugees are not clear. From the existing research it appears that refugee children and adolescents are vulnerable to the effects of pre-migration exposure to trauma, but the long-term effects of such exposure are mediated by certain risk and protective factor...
Article
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Mental problems have been hypothesized to impede social adaptation and vice versa, and discrimination is assumed to interact with both. The available empirical documentation is, however, limited. The objective of this study is to contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of associations and pathways between discrimination, mental problems an...
Article
Self- and parent assessment of mental health problems yield a limited degree of cross-informant agreement in adolescent populations. Working with data from 122 refugee children, adolescents and young adults from the Middle East, the aims of this study were to analyse levels of agreement and disagreement between self- and parent ratings of externali...
Article
The aim was to examine how traumatic and stressful events, responses to violence, child characteristics, and mothering quality, as measured in middle childhood predict psychological distress and positive resources in adolescence. The participants were 65 Palestinian adolescents (17+/-.85 years; 52% girls), who had been studied during the First Inti...
Article
To estimate change over 10 years concerning the prevalence of pain in the head, back and feet, among previously tortured refugees settled in Denmark, and to compare associations between methods of torture and prevalent pain at baseline and at 10-year follow-up. 139 refugees previously exposed to torture in their home country were interviewed at a D...
Article
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In the Middle East, war is sometimes called an uninvited guest in the family. Its onset means loss of loved ones, witnessing death and destruction, accompanied with feelings of fear, anger and despair. The participants of this study are Palestinian families whose lives have been shadowed by war, and refugee and military violence across three genera...
Article
A number of asylum-seeking children in Sweden have developed a pervasive loss of function associated with profound social withdrawal. The syndrome is called Depressive Devitalization. The aim of this study was to identify possible aetiological factors, outline the similarities between Depressive Devitalization and Pervasive Refusal Syndrome and to...
Article
The objective of this study was to examine the construct validity of PTSD in a sample of refugee children from the Middle East-- more specifically, to assess whether associations between traumatic events and specific PTSD symptoms were more outspoken than (1) the associations of PTSD symptoms with non-traumatic exposures, and (2) the associations o...
Article
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To estimate change over nine months and over two years, as concerns the prevalence and level of pain in the head, back and feet, among previously tortured refugees settled in Denmark, and to compare associations between torture methods and the prevalence of pain at baseline and at follow-up. Sixty-nine refugees previously exposed to torture in thei...
Article
Little attention has been given to the 'refugee experience' of children who follow their parents in escaping violence. This study examines how the experiences of violence become important events in the lives of a group of young refugees who were born in the Middle East, but escaped with their parents to Denmark ten years ago. On the basis of a narr...
Article
To research possible associations between previous exposure to specific torture techniques and prevalent pain in the head and face, back, and feet. 221 refugees, 193 males and 28 females, previously exposed to torture in their home country, were subject to a clinical interview at a rehabilitation clinic for torture victims. The interview focused on...
Article
With the aim of identifying predictors for being granted a residence permit, adult members of 149 refugee families from the Middle East answered a structured interview shortly after arrival on social and demographic background and family exposure to organized violence. At follow-up, 90 families (60.4 per cent) had been granted a residence permit. T...
Article
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The aim of this study was to compare profiles of present mental health and previous exposure to violence among refugee children from the Middle East, whose asylum seeking families either did or did not obtain permission to stay in Denmark. Shortly after arrival in Denmark, the parents of 311 Middle-Eastern children answered a structured interview o...
Article
Torture is known to affect both the individual and the family. The aim of the present study was to reach a better understanding of the significance of communication and information about parental exposure to violence in torture-surviving families. The theoretical background is Social Constructionism and Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM). In-d...
Article
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Sleep disturbance is frequently reported in children after traumatic experiences associated with organised violence. The aim of this study was to identify specific traumatic risk indicators and modifying factors for sleep disturbance among recently arrived refugee children from the Middle East. The study group comprises 311, 3-15 year old refugee c...
Article
The aim of this study was to discuss, in general, selected crucial aspects of the appropriate methodology for the development and validation of scales indicating health status, and to illustrate this empirically by within-material comparison of the accuracy of four different scale constructs based on identical raw data. The empirical example was ba...
Article
Background: The aim of this study was to discuss, in general, selected crucial aspects of the appropriate methodology for the development and validation of scales indicating health status, and to illustrate this empirically by within-material comparison of the accuracy of four different scale constructs based on identical raw data. Methods: The emp...
Article
To map the frequency (prevalence) of torture victims among parents in asylum seeking Middle Eastern refugee families, to map the occurrence (prevalence) of experiences of war and other forms of organised violence among the children in these families, to map the occurrence (prevalence) of emotional symptoms and behavioural problems among the childre...
Article
Using an in-depth psychological assessment as reference, the aim of the study was to validate adult Middle Eastern refugees' own testimonies of their possible previous exposure to torture. The study group comprised 31 male and 43 female refugees, who accepted participation in a structured interview with closed questions and a following blinded in-d...
Article
The aim of this study was to describe mental reactions and coping strategies among children of torture victims. The study comprised 11 children from 5 exiled families with at least one of the parents having been subjected to torture. Investigation methods applied were qualitative interviews in three different settings and two projective tests. The...

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