IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/socpsy/v45y1999i2p125-139.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Psychological Distress Through Immigration: the Two-Phase Temporal Pattern?

Author

Listed:
  • Michael Ritsner

    (Department of Psychiatry, Hebrew University, Hadassah Medical School, Jerusalem, Israel)

  • Alexander Ponizovsky

    (Institute for Psychiatric Research, Sh'ar Menashe Mental Health Center, Mobile Post Hefer 38814, Israel)

Abstract

A large community sample, cross-sectional and in part longitudinal design, and comparison groups was used to determine the timing of psychological distress among immigrants. A total of 2,378 adult immigrants from the former Soviet Union to Israel completed the self-administered questionnaire Talbieh Brief Distress Inventory. The aggregate levels of distress and six psychological symptoms- obsessiveness, hostility, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, and paranoid ideation - were compared at 20 intervals covering 1 to 60 months after resettlement. The level of psychological distress was significantly higher in the immigrants than that of Israeli natives but not in the potential immigrant controls. A two-phase temporal pattern of development of psychological distress was revealed consisting of escalation and reduction phases. The escalation phase was characterized by an increase in distress levels until the 27th month after arrival (a peak) and the reduction phase led to a decline returning to normal levels. The 1-month prevalence rate was 15.6% for the total sample, and for highly distressed subjects it reached 24% at the 27th month after arrival, and it declined to 4% at the 44th month. The time pattern of distress shared males and females, married and divorced/widowed (but not singles), as well as subjects of all age groups (except for immigrants in their forties). The two-phase pattern of distress obtained according to cross-sectional data was indirectly confirmed through a longitudinal way. Claims of early euphoric or distress-free period followed by mental health crisis frequently referred to in the literature on migration was not supported by this study.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Ritsner & Alexander Ponizovsky, 1999. "Psychological Distress Through Immigration: the Two-Phase Temporal Pattern?," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 45(2), pages 125-139, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:socpsy:v:45:y:1999:i:2:p:125-139
    DOI: 10.1177/002076409904500205
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/002076409904500205
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/002076409904500205?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Libuse Tyhurst, 1982. "Coping With Refugees a Canadian Experience: 1948 - 1981," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 28(2), pages 105-109, June.
    2. Westermeyer, Joseph & Neider, John & Vang, Tou Fu, 1984. "Acculturation and mental health: A study of Hmong refugees at 1.5 and 3.5 years postmigration," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 87-93, January.
    3. Robert Kohn & Joseph A. Flaherty & Itzhak Levav, 1989. "Somatic Symptoms Among Older Soviet Immigrants: an Exploratory Study," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 35(4), pages 350-360, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Devaraj, Srikant & Patel, Pankaj C., 2021. "Change in psychological distress in response to changes in reduced mobility during the early 2020 COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence of modest effects from the U.S," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 270(C).
    2. Amelie F. Constant & Teresa García-Muñoz & Shoshana Neuman & Tzahi Neuman, 2018. "A “healthy immigrant effect” or a “sick immigrant effect”? Selection and policies matter," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 19(1), pages 103-121, January.
    3. Antonios Paraschakis & Ioannis Michopoulos & Christos Christodoulou & Filippos Koutsaftis & Lefteris Lykouras & Athanassios Douzenis, 2014. "Characteristics of immigrant suicide completers in a sample of suicide victims from Greece," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 60(5), pages 462-467, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Blight, Karin Johansson & Ekblad, Solvig & Persson, Jan-Olov & Ekberg, Jan, 2006. "Mental health, employment and gender. Cross-sectional evidence in a sample of refugees from Bosnia-Herzegovina living in two Swedish regions," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(7), pages 1697-1709, April.
    2. Muhammad Ajmal Zahid & Abdullahi Fido & Rashed Alowaish & Mohamed Abd El-Motaal Mohsen & Mohammed Abdul Razik, 2003. "Psychiatric Morbidity Among Housemaids in Kuwait III: Vulnerability Factors," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 49(2), pages 87-96, June.
    3. Keisuke Ebata & Yuko Miyake, 1989. "A Mental Health Survey of the Vietnamese Refugee in Japan," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 35(2), pages 164-172, June.
    4. Antonello Barbati & Alessandro Geraci & Fabiana Niro & Letizia Pezzi & Marco Sarchiapone, 2022. "Do Migration and Acculturation Impact Somatization? A Scoping Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(23), pages 1-11, November.
    5. Haithem Zourrig & Kamel El Hedhli, 2023. "Consumption coping strategies and well‐being among refugee consumers," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(1), pages 140-170, January.
    6. Alexander Ponizovsky & Eliezer Perl, 1997. "Does Supported Housing Protect Recent Immigrants From Psychological Distress?," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 43(2), pages 79-86, June.
    7. Perry M. Nicassio & Gary S. Solomon & Steven S. Guest & Joel E. McCullough, 1986. "Emigration Stress and Langltage Proficiency as Correlates of Depression in a Sample of Southeast Asian Refugees," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 32(1), pages 22-28, March.
    8. Karen J. Aroian & Anne E. Norris & Carol A. Patsdaughter & Thanh V. Tran, 1998. "Predicting Psychological Distress Among Former Soviet Immigrants," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 44(4), pages 284-294, December.
    9. Thanh V. Tran & Victor Manalo & Victor T.D. Nguyen, 2007. "Nonlinear Relationship Between Length of Residence and Depression in a Community-Based Sample of Vietnamese Americans," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 53(1), pages 85-94, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:socpsy:v:45:y:1999:i:2:p:125-139. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.