According to European Statistical Office EUROSTAT, Romania represents the second source of immigrants in the European Union. Off the record, more than 2 million people work out of the country, sex ratio for immigrants being quite equal.

Parents’ immigration seems to become a new mode of abuse against children. The most optimistic statistics highlight that almost 100,000 of children have been abandoned by one or both parents, the majority being ascertained to older family members.

We followed-up 96 teenagers registered in Mental Health Center and University Clinic of Psychiatry Craiova, aged between 15.4 and 19.8 (mean age 17.4 years).

Of the 96 subjects included in the study, 59 were boys and 37 girls. Their mean age at parents’ departure was 8.2±1.9 years. In the total sample, the most prevalent symptoms at the onset were non-specific symptoms of stress response (i.e. exaggerated startle response, difficulties getting to sleep, difficulty in concentrating). Symptoms released after a delay of at least 6 months after the departure (more quickly at boys) and remaining members of the family decided to accompany the child to the psychiatrist more later, in several cases even at two years distance since the onset (earlier at boys, in which emotional response to abandon was noisier, often with dissocial behavior). Intensity of symptoms varied from mild to severe.

Home alone generation begins now, after several years of opening to European world, to be a problem that us, Romanian adult psychiatrists, haven’t encountered before.