The Relations between Well-Being, Prolonged Grief, Insomnia, and Moral Injury in a Group of Ukrainian Refugees

As the Ukrainian refugee crisis is a central topic in Europe, it is important to understand how the refugees’ well-being is related to factors that can arise due to losing a loved one and fleeing from war. Evidence suggests that refugees struggle with prolonged grief, insomnia, and moral injury. There is a lack of research on how these variables relate to each other. A survey was conducted with Ukrainian refugees. The analysis included descriptives, correlations, and mediations. The results supported a negative relationship between prolonged grief and well-being as well as insomnia and well-being. Moral injury did not show significant correlations with any of the variables. There was a positive relationship between prolonged grief and insomnia. No mediation effect of insomnia was found. The findings indicate that prolonged grief and insomnia relate to each other in the context of refugees which could be useful to consider for future interventions. As this study was the first one to examine moral injury and insomnia next to prolonged grief in refugees, future research should focus on longitudinal effects by also considering gender and cultural differences to gain more insight into how the variables relate to each other.