This Article Full Text (OnlineFirst PDF) All Versions of this Article: 0020764008096163v1 0020764008096163v2    most recent Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Tinghög, P. Articles by Nordenfelt, L. PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Tinghög, P. Articles by Nordenfelt, L. Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Immigrant- and non-immigrant-specific factors’ association with mental ill health among immigrants in Sweden

¹ Department of Health and Society, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden
² Section of Psychiatry, Neurotec Institution, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: petter.tinghog{at}ihs.liu.se.

	Abstract

Background: It has often been shown that immigrants are particularly at risk for mental ill health. The aim of the study was to investigate the association of immigrant- and non-immigrant-specific factors with mental ill health within a diverse immigrant population.

Method: An extensive questionnaire was sent out to a stratified random sample of three immigrant populations from Finland, Iraq and Iran. The 720 respondents completed a Swedish, Arabic or Farsi (Persian) version of the questionnaire including the WHO (10) Well-Being Index and the HSCL-25.

Results: The results indicate that mental ill health among immigrants is independently associated with non-immigrant-specific factors (i.e. high number of types of traumatic episodes, divorced/widowed, poor social network, economic insecurity and being female) and immigrant-specific factors (i.e. low level of socio-cultural adaptation). These results were obtained regardless of whether mental ill health was operationalized as low subjective well-being or a high symptom level of anxiety/depression.

Conclusions: These findings support the notion that mental ill health among immigrants is a multi-faceted phenomenon that needs to be tackled within a wide range of sectors – e.g. the healthcare system, the social service sector and, of course, the political arena.

First published on July 10, 2009, doi:10.1177/0020764008096163
This version was published on August 19, 2009


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?