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Children and adolescents constitute more than half of the global refugee population, and almost one-third of first-time asylum seekers in the European Union (EU) during 2015 were under 18 years of age. Syria, in particular, accounts for a substantial proportion of young refugees and asylum seekers because the ongoing civil war has led to almost 5 million Syrians fleeing their country and becoming refugees during the past 7 years. Being a child or adolescent refugee or asylum seeker carries an increased risk of developing mental illness, and such displaced young people are known to experience problems in accessing health-care support. The present article draws on examples from Syria in order to (i) Highlight mental health issues that typically arise in children and adolescent refugees and asylum seekers entering Europe and (ii) discuss how changes to health systems and policies in European countries receiving refugees and asylum seekers can be better aligned with global efforts to improve the mental health of young displaced immigrants. In general, research findings indicate that there is a need for better awareness, intra-agency collaboration, and cultural sensitivity toward the mental health needs of this immigrant population. Furthermore, there is also a need for EU countries to better respond to posttraumatic stress disorder and other typical refugee and asylum seeker mental health problems by more closely aligning national policies with global initiatives to improve the mental health of young displaced immigrants.

Research suggests that mindfulness can induce changes in the social domain, such as enhancing emotional connection to others, prosocial behavior, and empathy. However, despite growing interest in mindfulness in social psychology, very little is known about the effects of mindfulness on social cognition. Consequently, the aim of this study was to explore the relationship between mindfulness and social cognition by comparing meditators with non-meditators on several social cognition measures. A total of 60 participants (meditators, n = 30; non-meditators, n = 30) were matched on sex, age, and ethnic group, and then asked to complete the following assessment measures: Mindful Awareness Attention Scale (MAAS), Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire Short Form (FFMQ-SF), Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), Revised Eyes Test, Hinting Task, Ambiguous Intentions and Hostility Questionnaire (AIHQ), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), and Screening for Cognitive Impairment in Psychiatry (SCIP). The results showed that meditators reported higher empathy (except for the personal distress subscale), higher emotional recognition, higher theory of mind (ToM), and lower hostile attributional style/bias. The findings also demonstrated that dispositional mindfulness (both total score assessed with MAAS and mindfulness facets using the FFMQ) was associated with social cognition, although it was not equally correlated with all social cognition outcomes, and correlation patterns differ when analyses were conducted separately for meditators and non-meditators. In addition, results showed potential predictors for each social cognition variable, highlighting non-reactivity to inner experience as a key component of mindfulness in order to explain social cognition performance. In summary, the findings indicated that the meditator sample performed better on certain qualities (i.e., empathy, emotional recognition, ToM, hostile attributional style/bias) in comparison to non-meditators and, furthermore, support the notion that mindfulness is related to social cognition, which may have implications for the design of mindfulness-based approaches for use in clinical and non-clinical settings.

ObjectiveThere is a growing interest in evaluating the effectiveness of compassion interventions for treating psychological disorders. The present study evaluated the effectiveness of “attachment-based compassion therapy” (ABCT) in the treatment of fibromyalgia (FM), and the role of psychological flexibility as a mediator of improvements.MethodsA total of 42 patients with FM were randomly assigned to ABCT or relaxation (active control group). Both the intervention and control condition were combined with treatment as usual (TAU). The primary outcome was functional status (FIQ), and the secondary outcomes were clinical severity (CGI-S), pain catastrophizing (PCS), anxiety (HADS-A), depression (HADS-D), quality of life (EQ-5D), and psychological flexibility (AAQ-II). Differences between the groups were estimated using mixed-effects models, and mediation assessments were conducted using path analyses.ResultsThe ABCT group demonstrated superior outcomes compared to the relaxation group, including better FIQ values after treatment (B = −3.01; p = 0.003). Differences in FIQ were maintained at 3-month follow-up (B = −3.33; p = 0.001). The absolute risk reduction in ABCT compared to relaxation increased by 40.0%, with an NNT = 3 based on criteria of ≥50% FIQ reduction after treatment. Psychological flexibility had a significant mediating effect on improvements.ConclusionThese results suggest that ABCT combined with TAU appears to be effective in the treatment of FM symptoms.Clinical Trial Registrationhttp://ClinicalTrials.gov, identifier NCT02454244.