A refugee camp in the center of Europe: clinical characteristics of asylum seekers in Brussels in September 2015

A refugee camp in the center of Europe: observational descriptive sample analysis of demographic and clinical characteristics of asylum seekers arriving in a refugee camp and presenting as patients to a field hospital in Brussels in September 2015

Status

Active, not recruiting

Phases

Unknown

Study type

Observational

Source

ISRCTN

Registry ID

ISRCTN13523620

Enrollment

4037

Registered

2016-05-11

Start date

2015-09-05

Completion date

Unknown

Last updated

2019-02-11

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

Demographic (age, origin, gender, arrival time) and clinical characteristics (complaints, diagnoses, comorbidities, acute treatments and referrals) of asylum-seekers arriving in a refugee camp in Brussels. Not Applicable

Interventions

A prospectively designed template was used to register data for all patients (randomly self-presenting to a Field Hospital in the refugee camp): age, gender, country of origin, date of arrival in Belg

Eligibility

Sex/Gender

All

Inclusion criteria

Inclusion criteria: 1. Asylum-seekers (all ages, both genders) from the Middle-East and elsewhere arriving in a refugee camp in Brussels between September 5th and October 5th, 2015 2. Self-presenting as patients to a Field Hospital organised by Doctors of the World

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion criteria: Patients with missing date of presentation, chief complaint, or single primary diagnosis, and patients not giving oral informed consent were excluded.

Design outcomes

Primary

Measure	Time frame
Proportion of diagnosis categories found among asylum seekers in Brussels. The primary diagnoses was made by a physician, based on anamnesis, physical examination, and available point-of-care tests (glucose, pregnancy, …). This was done on the spot during the consultation: after anamnesis, and before eventual referral of the patient.	—

Secondary

Measure	Time frame
A prospectively designed template was used to register data for all patients: 1. Age: the exact age of all patients was asked. Descriptive statistics for this quantitative variable was presented as measure of central tendency and dispersion (median, range, interquartile range IQR). The analyses was broken down for age categories (15years old). 2. Gender: male or female 3. Country of origin: each patient was asked which country they originally inhabited. These were categorised into regions (Middle East, rest of Asia, Africa, Europe, other). 4. Date of arrival in Belgium: each patient was asked exactly when (date) they arrived in Belgium 5. Appointment at Belgian Immigration Office (BIO): each patient was asked whether and when they had requested or received an appointment at BIO or were already officially registered as asylum-seeker. This was expressed in “days’. 6. Location of shelter: each patient was asked where they resided at the time of the consultation, these were categorised as ‘refugee camp Brussels’, ‘other refugee camps’, Governmental asylum-seeker centers, open air, relatives and friends, foster families, other and unknown. 7. All physical and mental complaints, and which was the “chief complaint” of each patient were recorded by physicians. 8. All pre-existing comorbidities, classified using the case descriptions in the WHO "Communicable disease control in emergencies" field manual. 9. One primary diagnosis per patient was recorded according to a list of 50 possible diagnoses, adapted from case descriptions in the WHO "Communicable disease control in emergencies" field manual, the Sphere Project Handbook, and a template used in previous humanitarian operations. Post-hoc, trained physicians classified these diagnoses into categories, adapted from ICD-10. 10. All patients with clinical signs of loca	—

Measure

Time frame

A prospectively designed template was used to register data for all patients: 1. Age: the exact age of all patients was asked. Descriptive statistics for this quantitative variable was presented as measure of central tendency and dispersion (median, range, interquartile range IQR). The analyses was broken down for age categories (15years old). 2. Gender: male or female 3. Country of origin: each patient was asked which country they originally inhabited. These were categorised into regions (Middle East, rest of Asia, Africa, Europe, other). 4. Date of arrival in Belgium: each patient was asked exactly when (date) they arrived in Belgium 5. Appointment at Belgian Immigration Office (BIO): each patient was asked whether and when they had requested or received an appointment at BIO or were already officially registered as asylum-seeker. This was expressed in “days’. 6. Location of shelter: each patient was asked where they resided at the time of the consultation, these were categorised as ‘refugee camp Brussels’, ‘other refugee camps’, Governmental asylum-seeker centers, open air, relatives and friends, foster families, other and unknown. 7. All physical and mental complaints, and which was the “chief complaint” of each patient were recorded by physicians. 8. All pre-existing comorbidities, classified using the case descriptions in the WHO "Communicable disease control in emergencies" field manual. 9. One primary diagnosis per patient was recorded according to a list of 50 possible diagnoses, adapted from case descriptions in the WHO "Communicable disease control in emergencies" field manual, the Sphere Project Handbook, and a template used in previous humanitarian operations. Post-hoc, trained physicians classified these diagnoses into categories, adapted from ICD-10. 10. All patients with clinical signs of loca

—

Countries

Belgium

Outcome results

None listed

Source: ISRCTN (via WHO ICTRP) · Data processed: Feb 28, 2026