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Iraq: children's and adolescents' mental health under conditions of continuous turmoil

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

AbdulKareem AlObaidi
AbdulKareem AlObaidi*
Affiliation:
Institute for International Education (HE), New York, USA, email kareemobaidi@gmail.com
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Children and adolescents constitute half of Iraq's population of over 30 million. Mental health problems experienced by Iraqi children and adolescents are a hidden problem. Many factors contribute to the mental health problems of young Iraqis, including being victims and witnesses to violence, seeing family members become victims, being displaced from their homes, and experiencing the instability that still plagues their nation. Iraqis have experienced severe deprivation caused by many years of war, economic embargoes and civil unrest. Violence, poverty and the failure of the education and health systems have severely undermined the well-being of Iraqis, especially children (AlObaidi et al, 2009).

Type
Thematic Papers — Policy on Mental Health
Information
International Psychiatry , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , February 2011 , pp. 4 - 5
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits noncommercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 2011

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