Background International marriages between Vietnamese women and Korean men have increased rapidly in Korea. Successful adaptation of these women is challenging, and concerns on the issue have been raised. Most existing studies have surveyed Vietnamese immigrant women in urban Korea; less is known about women residing in rural areas of Korea. Uncovering the experiences and perspectives of these women can inform the design of community support resources. The purpose of this study was to identify a typology to effectively describe the subjective perspectives of Vietnamese women residing in rural Korea on adaptation to Korean culture and society. Methods and results A Q-methodological study was conducted with five steps: construction of the concourse, Q sample, selection of participants, Q-sorting, and data analysis. Twenty-six Vietnamese women married to Korean men who attended local public health centers were surveyed and asked to rank-order 39 Q-statements using a 9-point scale. Principal component factor analysis using a pc-QUANL program was performed to identify adaptation sub-types. Four types of adaptation were identified and labeled: positive adaptation (35.54%), passive adaptation with reservations (8.33%), adaptation with frustration (6.20%), and adaptation and involvement (5.33%). These four types explained 55.40% of the total variance in the women’s experience of adaptation to Korean culture and society. Conclusions This study provides data that may be helpful in understanding the challenges immigrant women in rural areas of Korea face, and in planning family-sensitive adaptation support programs for these women and their families. © 2019 Jeon et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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education cultural anthropology Vietnam South Korea educational status immigrant rural area Republic of Korea vietnamese public health service sampling human factor analysis Asian continental ancestry group rural population coping behavior Adaptation, Psychological Young Adult Humans migrant family psychology married person male Emigrants and Immigrants female Viet Nam clinical article Article adult human experiment data analysis frustration Culture Korea