Mental disorders of immigrants in Germany

Currently the majority of data regarding indicators of psychiatric morbidity of migrant and minority groups in Germany is derived from studies on help-seeking behavior, mental health service use, or data from population studies, which were not specifically aimed at including migrants. Such data are only available for certain groups, for example, population-based studies on psychiatric disorders and suicidal behavior among Turkish migrants have been conducted, while, comprehensive data on the psychiatric morbidity among major migrant groups in Germany are still rather limited. Barriers to recruiting migrants for health studies, difficulties in assessing psychiatric morbidity in multi-cultural samples, observed as feasibility problems, are among the factors that interfere with population-based studies.