You have full access to this open access article. The current situation in Afghanistan makes it likely that we are facing a new wave of Afghan refugees, warranting more knowledge about how to deal with mental health problems among them. The findings showed that EM varied with gender, age, generation, and migration stories. Participants suggested different potential causes, risk factors, and ways of managing symptoms of depression and PTSD depending on the context e.
The younger males discussed mostly traumatic experiences before and during flight as possible causes. The practice of condensing a single set of EMs within a group may not only be analytically challenging in a time-pressed clinical setting but also misleading. While many groups of refugees have consistently shown high prevalence of mental health problems [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ], underutilization of mental health services, alternative help-seeking preferences, and different illness explanatory models have consistently posed barriers for effective treatment [ 5 , 6 , 7 ].
Earlier research has documented variations in the way refugee groups explain and view mental health problems [ 8 , 9 ]. Discrepancies in understanding conceptions of mental health may hamper the recognition of mental health problems in patients from other societies, with the risk of misdiagnosis or treatment failure.
The current situation in Afghanistan in the fall of makes it likely that we are facing a new wave of Afghan refugees, warranting more knowledge about how to deal with mental health problems among them. We argue for a need to venture beyond notions of static cultural models, since culture is often characterized by intra-cultural variations differences within a cultural group related to e.
Thus, we propose a need to improve our understanding and identify how refugee groups perceive and prefer to cope with mental health problems in dynamic, fluid, and multiple ways. The concept of illness explanatory models EMs has been employed to ensure culturally sensitive care, enhance therapeutic alliances between professionals and patients, and improve our understanding of help-seeking paths, treatment compliance, and receptivity to health promotion messages [ 12 , 13 , 14 ].
