Dra. Julie Van Hoey

Publicaciones

• The role of resilience for migrants and refugees’ mental health in times of Covid-19

  Migrants and refugees need international protection, particularly during a crisis such as the current health pandemic. The aim of this research was to examine the mental health and attitudes towards COVID-19 in migrants and refugees compared to the general Spanish population. Moreover, the nature of resilience was examined as a mixed component though life experiences. For this proposal, an interview was carried out in a sample of 245 participants who volunteered to participate in the study. The sample was divided into Spanish non-migrants, Spanish migrants, non-Spanish migrants and refugees. Attitudes towards COVID-19, resilience (based on BRCS) and mental health (based on DASS-21) were measured. The results obtained can be described as follows: (i) Migrant participants indicated worse mental health than non-migrants, and within the migrant group, refugees presented worse scores; (ii) No differences were found in attitudes towards COVID-19 in any of the subgroups; (iii) A moderating effect of group was found for the relationship between resilience and mental health but not between resilience and fear of COVID-19. These results might be of great interest in making visible the vulnerability of migrants and specifically refugees, and the proposal of intervention programs based on resilience training.

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• Differences between health workers and general population in psychological symptoms after the first wave of the covid-19 outbreak in Spain.

  The coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) has worsened the physical and mental health of the general population. Healthcare workers have a high risk of suffering a mental disorder after the first wave. In this way, psychologists, who deal with mental health issues and are considered as healthcare workers in many countries, are of interest in this context. The present study aimed to examine anxiety, depression, stress, and obsessions and compulsions across psychologists, healthcare professionals, and the general community. These variables were measured through the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21), as well as the Yale–Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS), which are related to different sociodemographic variables. The study was carried out after the first wave in Spain through an online questionnaire. Structural equation modeling and a multigroup analysis were carried out across the groups and variables under study. The results suggested that; (i) healthcare workers and general community depicted similar results in anxiety and stress, as well as obsessions; (ii) the group of psychologists depicted better scores than the other groups under study; (iii) stress and anxiety did not predict compulsions in the group of psychologists; (iv) anxiety predicted obsessions for all the professions, while the relationship of this variable with stress was different for each group; and (v) invariance reached a full metric level.

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• Older women killed by their partners: A socio-demographic analysis and risk factors. In Shankardass, M. K.

  Gender-based violence is a relevant issue that is receiving major attention in the last decades. Unfortunately, the violence that several elderly women are suffering from their partners does not receive the same attention. This chapter analyzes the main variables of this phenomenon in the cases of 30 older women killed in Spain by their partners. These murders meant the 57.69% of all the older women killed in the family. It is also reviewed in the chapter the results founded in other countries about this problem. Some of the victim risk factors reviewed are age, disability, dementia, and mental disorders; about offenders there have been analyzed factors as age, disability, disorders, or criminal records. Risk factors of elderly women killed by their partners are compared with risk factors in the homicides of elderly peopled killed by other family members.

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