Refugee Mental Health during the Asylum Waiting Process: A Qualitative Study of Turkish and Canadian Contexts (original) (raw)

While the literature suggests that forced migration negatively affects mental health, fewer studies focus on the mental health of refugee claimants waiting to be granted asylum. In addition, despite the high numbers of refugee claimants in the Global South, fewer studies compare refugee experiences globally. This study attempts to fill these gaps by addressing the mental health of refugee claimants from Iran during the asylum waiting process. Focusing on the Turkish and Canadian contexts, this study asks the following questions: How does the waiting process affect Iranian refugees' mental health and wellbeing? How do their lived experiences of mental health and wellbeing differ based on the country of temporary asylum? In-depth interviews were conducted with 15 Iranian refugees. Nine of them spent their waiting process in Türkiye, and six others spent it in Canada. The analysis results showed that the waiting process is characterized by a sense of temporariness, lack of belonging, precarity, and uncertainty of the future, which lead to adverse mental health outcomes.