Psychiatric status of asylum seeker families held for a protracted period in a remote detention centre in Australia.

Objective: To document the psychiatric status of a near complete sample of children and their families from one ethnic group held for an extended period of time in a remote immigration detention facility in Australia.

Method: Structured psychiatric interviews were administered by three same-language speaking psychologists by phone to assess the lifetime and current psychiatric disorders among 10 families (14 adults and 20 children) held in immigration detention for more than two years.

Results: All adults and children met diagnostic criteria for at least one current psychiatric disorder with 26 disorders identified among 14 adults, and 52 disorders among 20 children.