Professionals in somatic and mental health care have to adjust their methods, knowledge and skills to the needs of immigrant children and their parents in order to provide adequate care. Cross-cultural comparisons on the prevalence of emotional and behavioral problems and the factors that increase or reduce the risks for these problems will support clinical reasoning and practice. Described are two studies in which the prevalence of and risk factors for emotional and behavioral problems in multiple cultures are compared while using the Child Behavior Checklist, a parent checklist that produces problem scores. Dutch children and adolescents show low levels of emotional and behavioral problems in comparison to children in eleven other cultures measured with similar methodology. However, Dutch adolescents score remarkably high on attention problems and this score is above the omni-cultural mean. Sweden and Germany score lower on all syndromes indicating that opportunities exist for Dutch youth to reduce the levels of emotional and behavioral problems. Turkish immigrant children and adolescents score higher than Dutch children on internalizing and externalizing and higher than Turkish children on externalizing. The difference between Turkish immigrant children and Dutch children is larger than the difference between immigrant and Turkish children. Marked are these differences on the CBCL syndrome anxious/depressed where immigrant children score the highest. Support is found for the notion that increase in integration will lead to reduction in levels of problems in immigrant children and adolescents. Mental disorders in parents, convictions and incarceration, marital problems, poverty, and overburdening of mothers increase the risk for emotional and behavioral problems.

[No Keywords available]

[No Keywords available]