Psychiatry Research
Volume 151, Issue 1-2, 2007, Pages 115-122

Mental disorders among English-speaking Mexican immigrants to the US compared to a national sample of Mexicans (Article)

Breslau J.* , Aguilar-Gaxiola S. , Borges G. , Castilla-Puentes R.C. , Kendler K.S. , Medina-Mora M.-E. , Su M. , Kessler R.C.
  • a Department of Internal Medicine, University of California, Davis, School of Medicine, Sacramento, CA, United States
  • b Department of Internal Medicine, University of California, Davis, School of Medicine, Sacramento, CA, United States
  • c Mexican Institute of Psychiatry, Mexico City, Mexico
  • d Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of North Carolina, Collegeville, PA, United States
  • e Departments of Psychiatry and Human Genetics, Medical College of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, United States
  • f Mexican Institute of Psychiatry, Mexico City, Mexico
  • g Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States
  • h Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States

Abstract

Our understanding of the relationship between immigration and mental health can be advanced by comparing immigrants pre- and post-immigration with residents of the immigrants' home countries. DSM-IV anxiety and mood disorders were assessed using identical methods in representative samples of English-speaking Mexican immigrants to the US, a subsample of the US National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCSR), and Mexicans, the Mexican National Comorbidity Survey (MNCS). Retrospective reports of age of onset of disorders and, in the immigrant sample, age of immigration were analyzed to study the associations of pre-existing mental disorders with immigration and of immigration with the subsequent onset and persistence of mental disorders. Pre-existing anxiety disorders predicted immigration (OR = 3.0; 95% CI 1.2-7.4). Immigration predicted subsequent onset of anxiety (OR = 1.9; 95% CI 0.9-3.9) and mood (OR = 2.3; 95% CI 1.3-4.0) disorders and persistence of anxiety (OR = 3.7 95% CI 1.2-11.2) disorders. The results are inconsistent with the "healthy immigrant" hypothesis (that mentally healthy people immigrate) and partly consistent with the "acculturation stress" hypothesis (i.e., that stresses of living in a foreign culture promote mental disorder). Replication and extension of these results in a larger bi-national sample using a single field staff are needed. © 2006 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Author Keywords

Migration Anxiety disorders Epidemiology Migrant selection mood disorders

Index Keywords

mood disorder immigrant anxiety disorder risk human immigration comorbidity middle aged controlled study priority journal Anxiety Disorders Mexico diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders Cross-Sectional Studies mental disease Confidence interval United States disease course Humans Cross-Cultural Comparison Adolescent male Acculturation female prediction population research Article Retrospective Studies major clinical study adult Emigration and Immigration English as a second language retrospective study Mood Disorders Multilingualism Mexican Americans health survey
Link
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-34247383632&doi=10.1016%2fj.psychres.2006.09.011&partnerID=40&md5=04ba6fd322749fb9ad4ca4aa9847f77b
DOI: 10.1016/j.psychres.2006.09.011
ISSN: 01651781
Cited by: 45
Original Language: English