[Homelessness and mental health diagnose during the Great Recession (2008-2017): the effect of immigration.]

Objective: Homelessness, which is a severe social problem across Europe and on the rise over the past decade, is closely linked to organic and mental health problems. In front of the lack of diagnostic analysis studies in the Spanish territory, this research aimed to determine the sociodemographic characteristics of a sample of individuals experiencing homelessness (IEH), to determine the prevalence of diagnoses of substance use disorders, dual pathology and other mental disorders and to analyze the existence of diagnostic differences between IEH born in the country and immigrant IEH.
Methods: A transversal and observational study was carried out, based on the analysis of mental health diagnostics of the medical histories of a sample of 1,072 IEH (453 locals and 619 immigrants) assisted between 2008 and 2017 in mental health services in Girona, northeastern Spain. For the statistical analysis, Student's t test was used to compare means and the chi-squared test was used for the analysis of qualitative variables. A binary logistic regression analysis was carried out to establish the predictor variables for the diagnosis of drug addiction and dual pathology.
Results: IEH showed high rates of mental disorders, especially psychoactive substances (82.6% of diagnosed people). 43.9% of IEH showed alcohol dependence as the reason for their diagnosis, followed by cocaine addiction and opiates. Foreign born IEH had more diagnoses for alcohol dependence and less for opiates or dual pathology than spanish born IEH. IEH born in Spain showed a higher vulnerability and received more mental health diagnoses than immigrant IEH.
Conclusions: Even though immigrant PESS show more diagnoses for alcohol dependence, PESS born in Spain show a higher vulnerability and receive more mental health diagnoses than immigrant PESS. The process of migrating seems to establish a difference in the kind of mental disorders and addictions the PESS collective is prone to.
Competing Interests: Disclosure The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.