Discrimination between migrants and non-migrants in depression’s management by General Practitioners

Background In Europe, migrants have a higher prevalence of depression compared to the native population and, more often, they face unmet medical needs, including less frequent referral to mental health services. According to social psychology, general practitioners (GPs) may undertreat migrants due to unconscious stereotypical bias that could lead to and sustain discrimination in primary health care. The central question in this research is whether patients' migration background influences GPs' attitudes and decisions regarding treatment and referral in mental health. Methods In 2021, an experimental design was delivered to GPs with two video vignettes staging a depressed native and a Belgo-Moroccan patient, respectively. The randomly assigned vignette was followed by an online questionnaire regarding treatment and referral decisions. We recruited a national sample of Belgian GPs' (n = 700). T-tests and chi-square were used for analyses. Results The preliminary results are based on the first 224 respondents. Overall, there was no significant difference in the management of depression between a Belgian patient and a Belgo-Moroccan patient. Nevertheless, severity of symptoms was rated lower in the Belgo-Moroccan as compared to the Belgo-Moroccan (t = 2.37, p = .019). Conclusions In summary, these results indicate that general practitioners seem to treat migrants fairly in comparison with non-migrants. However, underestimation of the severity of the symptoms could lead to a different medical decision. This hypothesis will be investigated in the coming months. Key messages These findings may help us to further understand the role of general practitioner behaviour in mental health care discrimination. This research shed light on current management of migrants’ mental health by the primary health care providers in Belgium.