• Summary: This article provides a critique of the epidemiological research that currently informs mental health social work with asylum seekers. Most of the literature that currently informs social work practice with asylum seekers with mental health difficulties comes from psychiatric studies which are largely underpinned by a medical model.
• Findings: It is argued that aetiological accounts, predominantly deriving from psychiatry and based largely on biological causation, are untenable. A more comprehensive model is presented, which considers both biological causation and a social perspective and locates the mental health difficulties experienced by asylum seekers in a much wider context. The model is further divided into pre-, post- and migratory stress factors.
• Application: The aim is to provide social work with a practical tool to make sense of the mental health difficulties faced by asylum seekers, help in the development of assessment tools, and help multidisciplinary agencies to define the roles and remit of staff as well as contribute towards the development of policy and practice.
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