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Risk of psychopathology following traumatic events among immigrants and native-born persons in Denmark

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Abstract

Purpose

Immigrants may have increased risk of mental disorders compared with native-born persons. We aimed to expand the limited research on immigrants’ posttraumatic psychopathology related to traumatic experiences in their country of resettlement.

Methods

We obtained data from a cohort of Danish residents with ≥ 1 traumatic event recorded in health and administrative national registries during 1994–2016. We calculated risks of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and substance use disorders (SUD) within 5 years post-trauma among native-born Danes and immigrants who had been in Denmark for ≥ 10 years at the time of their index trauma (including immigrants overall and immigrants from specific regions). Risks were compared via age- and sex-standardized risk ratios (SRR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI). We restricted to persons with no record of the disorder under investigation in the 10 years pre-trauma, and stratified by non-interpersonal (e.g., transport accidents) versus interpersonal trauma (e.g., assaults).

Results

Following non-interpersonal trauma, immigrants were more likely than native-born Danes to be diagnosed with PTSD (SRR = 5.2, 95% CI 4.6, 5.9), about as likely to be diagnosed with depression (SRR = 0.98, 95% CI 0.92, 1.1), and less likely to be diagnosed with SUD (SRR = 0.89, 95% CI 0.82, 0.95). Results were similar following interpersonal trauma, except the SRR for PTSD was reduced in magnitude (SRR = 3.0, 95% CI 1.7, 5.4). There were differences by region of birth.

Conclusion

Immigrants to Denmark have higher risk of PTSD following traumatic experiences than do native-born Danes, possibly due to the combined influence of adverse pre-, peri-, and/or post-migration experiences.

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Data availability

Data are available subject to the rules and regulations of the Danish goverment. More information about how to access the data can be obtained from Statistics Denmark.

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Funding

The work presented herein was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), #R01MH110453 (PI: Gradus).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

    Meghan L. Smith, Vijaya Seegulam & Jaimie L. Gradus

  2. Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark

    Péter Szentkúti, Erzsébet Horváth-Puhó, Henrik Toft Sørensen & Jaimie L. Gradus

  3. School of Public Health, Boston University, 715 Albany St., Boston, MA, 02118, USA

    Sandro Galea

  4. Department of Epidemiology, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Timothy L. Lash

  5. Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA

    Anthony J. Rosellini

  6. National Center for PTSD Executive Division, White River Junction, VT, USA

    Paula P. Schnurr

  7. Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Hanover, NH, USA

    Paula P. Schnurr

  8. Department of Psychiatry, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA

    Jaimie L. Gradus

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Contributions

All co-authors have made substantial contributions to the manuscript, have approved of the manuscript, and agree to be accountable for all aspects of the material represented. Specific contributions were as follows: conceptualization: MLS, JLG. Data curation: PS, EH. Formal analysis: PS. Interpretation: MLS, VS, PS, EH, JLG. Funding acquisition: JLG, SG, PPS, TLL, AJR, HTS. Writing—original draft: MLS, VS, JLG. Writing—critical review and editing: PS, EH, SG, TLL, AJR, PPS, HTS.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jaimie L. Gradus.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

This work was approved by the Institutional Review Board at Boston University and reported to the Danish Data Protection Agency (2015–57-0002).

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Smith, M.L., Seegulam, V., Szentkúti, P. et al. Risk of psychopathology following traumatic events among immigrants and native-born persons in Denmark. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol 58, 1305–1316 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-022-02391-y

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