Predictors of household chaos in Syrian refugee families resettled in Turkish communities

The Syrian conflict accounts for the largest number of refugees in modern history (>13 million), the vast amount of which are children. Lack of data has made revealing the effects of war and displacement on children's development difficult, implicating that potential risk factors have yet to be revealed. Household chaos (i.e., home environments high in disorganization and instability, and low in regularity and routines) has been implicated as a risk factor for child development in the broader literature but has yet to be explored in a war-related context. The current study explores potential determinants of household chaos in 100 Syrian refugee families resettled in Turkish communities. This was examined through multiple linear regressions investigating the impact of parental education, fluid intelligence, socioeconomic status in country of origin, post-traumatic stress symptoms, potentially traumatic events, downward mobility, literacy environment and housing conditions on the level of household chaos as rated by mothers and fathers respectively. Data was gathered through a battery of experimental tasks and a series of questionnaires. The results showed that maternal ratings of housing conditions (p = .040), maternal post-traumatic stress symptoms (p = .003) and paternal ratings of literacy environment (p = .005) were predictive of household chaos. Worse housing conditions, higher levels of post-traumatic stress symptoms and poorer literacy environment were associated with higher levels of household chaos. These results suggest that directing focus towards improvements of maternal mental health, as well as introducing interactive reading interventions may benefit Syrian refugee children's continued development.