Question: Is there any evidence of differences between German women and those of Turkish origin in terms of psychological well-being on admission to the hospital? And do any distinctions arise within the ethnic Turkish group depending on the migration generation or the degree of acculturation? Patients and Methodology: The following were recorded in the context of a public health project analyzing hospitalized German and Turkish women with gynecological disorders: socio-demographic factors, details of migration and acculturation, knowledge of health matters and behavior, subjective theory about their own state of health and general satisfaction with life. The subjective complaints of the patients interviewed resulting from physical and psychological symptoms were investigated using the psychometric SCL-90-R symptom checklist questionnaire (nine scales: somatization, obsession, insecurity, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobic fear, paranoid thoughts, and psychoticism). During the period that the investigation took place (March 1997 to October 1998) questions were put to 320 patients of German and 262 of Turkish origin using multi-part questionnaires (both in the German and Turkish languages) at the start of hospitalization in the gynecological wards of the Rudolf Virchow hospital in Berlin. Results and Conclusions: A total of 230 Turkish and 264 German women were included in the SCL-90-R evaluation. After six socio-demographically similar groups had been created, the burden by psychological symptoms of the patients of Turkish origin (when compared to their German counterparts) was higher on the day of admission to the hospital in the majority of the six individual scales defined by the SCL-90-R, as well as overall. In relation to psychological burden, there was no evidence of significant differences between women of Turkish descent who were acculturated to a "greater" or "lesser" extent. Women of second-generation Turkish origin (and for whom we can assume the least direct experience of migration) felt themselves most detrimentally affected by the psychological symptoms measured with the SCL-90-R questionnaire.

Migration SCL-90-R Psychological burden Acculturation German-Turkish comparison

hospital admission Germany social psychology public health service demography clinical feature human Health Behavior controlled study Turkey (republic) health status ethnology quality of life female questionnaire cultural factor psychologic test Article psychometry major clinical study migration satisfaction