Risk factor
Ugo Pace
Kore University of Enna

Risk factors refer to those variables that may impede the coping processes of adolescents who are also engaged in achieving evolutionary tasks. In other words, risk factors are the variables that hinder a person’s process of resilience in that they counteract the effect of protective factors, thus impeding evolutionary needs.
In addition, the literature stresses that experienced trauma is responsible for serious short- and long-term emotional disorders, such as anxiety and depression as well as post-traumatic stress disorder (Kinzie, 1989; Blair & Coles, 2000).
Viewed through the lens of an ecological model in the study of development, other risk factors may also influence the adolescent’s adaptation. In fact, although published findings appear to be debatable, foreign children whose parents are divorced are more likely to exhibit psychological symptoms than those whose parents are still married. In addition, other children whose mothers reported coping difficulties or conflicts reported high levels of psychological distress (Tozer et al., 2018). The risk factors related to the adolescents’ coping include inadequate institutional support as well as perceived discrimination, and both of these are variables related to and predictive of psychopathologies such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (e.g., Mollica et al., 2001).
In general, therefore, mental health is a risk factor related to the coping of adolescents arriving in a new country. At the same time, victimization is also a risk factor for social adaptation because it negatively influences the young person’s sense of self-esteem and deeper aspects of the self (e.g. Tozer et al., 2018). The literature also highlights the fact that foreign unaccompanied minors generally report high levels of stress and low levels of happiness. This may inevitably have a negative effect on the emotional processes that generate the psychosocial skills necessary to both cope with the situation that adolescents experience and overcome the obstacles (e.g., linguistic, financial, social) they face in the host country. In general, it is fundamental to conduct a risk factor analysis to reinforce the monitoring of psychological well-being and preventing distress.
Risk factor analysis is fundamental in the RE-SERVES project for averting distress among young newcomers and outlining good educational and social practices.

Selected references

Blair, R. J. R., & Coles, M. (2000). Expression recognition and behavioural problems in early adolescence. Cognitive development, 15(4), 421-434.

Kinzie, J. D. (1989). Therapeutic approaches to traumatized Cambodian refugees. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 2(1), 75-91.

Mollica, R. F., Sarajlić, N., Chernoff, M., Lavelle, J., Vuković, I. S., & Massagli, M. P. (2001). Longitudinal study of psychiatric symptoms, disability, mortality, and emigration among Bosnian refugees. Jama, 286(5), 546-554.

Tozer, M., Khawaja, N. G., & Schweitzer, R. (2018). Protective factors contributing to wellbeing among refugee youth in Australia. Journal of psychologists and counsellors in schools, 28(1), 66-83.