A COMMUNITY-BASED RISK REDUCTION AND RECOVERY PROGRAM; A MODEL FOR THE SYRIAN REFUGEE CRISIS

Abstract

Women and children are the primary risk group in terms of secondary mortality and morbidity caused by wars and conflicts. Turkey has hosted the largest population of Syrians since 2011. In this study, it was carried out the investigation to implement a community based, culturally-sensitive risk reduction and recovery program (RRRP) for Syrian refugees who were living outside of the camps in Turkey. Quantitative and qualitative data were used for program evaluation. Antenatal and postnatal care, contraceptive demand, breastfeeding, referred cases, and self-efficacy increased significantly, while mental health symptoms decreased following the intervention (p <0.05). The results of this study indicated that the RRRP was a powerful tool to stimulate hope through the reestablishment of daily routines based on risk reduction, building positive thinking, creating social support, increasing self-efficacy, and decreasing mental health symptoms as a community empowerment program for refugees.