Social support and mental health status among Afghan immigrants in North of Iran

Background: Mental health of immigrants can be effective on health status of Aboriginal people. One of the factors that impact on people's physical and mental health is social support. This study aimed to determine the status of social support and mental health and its effective factors on immigrants.Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study of 400 cases of Afghan immigrants was carried out in North of Iran - Savojbolagh County in 2014. GHQ-28 and Vaux’s social support questionnaires, which are designed and validated for demographic and mental health purposes were used in order to collect the data for the survey. In addition, the attained data were analyzed quantitatively by SPSS-18 software.Results: The study subjects were 231 men (57.7%) and 169 women (42.3%). Findings showed that the overall mental disorder is 26.5%. Among mental health subscales, the prevalence of social dysfunction, psychosomatic problems, anxiety and depression in the studied population were 15.3%, 37.5%, 20.8% and 21.5%, respectively. An inverse association between social support and prevalence of mental health was shown.Conclusions: With respect to the findings attained in the study, there is a positive relationship between social support and the prevalence of mental disorders among Afghan immigrants in a significant statistical way. In general, increasing social support services for Afghan immigrants is a key factor to improve their mental health status.