Suicidal ideation and distress among immigrant adolescents: the role of acculturation, life stress, and social support.
Acculturative stress and social support play important roles in suicide-related phenomena among adolescent immigrants. To examine their contributions, measures of acculturative and general life stress and a measure of multiple sources of social support were used to predict psychological distress and suicidal ideation among Korean-born high school students residing in the US. Korean students who were sojourning without both parents were compared to Korean students who immigrated with both parents, Korean students who remained in Korea, and American high school students in the US (total N = 227; 56.8% female). The sojourning group reported higher levels of life stress, distress, psychological symptoms, and suicidal ideation than the other groups. Within the two acculturating groups, levels of distress, symptoms, and suicidal ideation were associated with life stress, lack of parental support, and not living with both parents. The findings have important implications for suicide prevention among immigrant adolescents, and imply that parental support is particularly protective.
Department of Psychology, New School University, New York, New York, USA. dryongcho@yahoo.com
Yong-Beom
YB
Cho
Nick
N
Haslam
D000069:Acculturation; D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000523:psychology; D054242:Emigrants and Immigrants / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007723:Korea; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D011336:Probability; D012016:Reference Values; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012944:Social Support; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000523:psychology*; D013405:Suicide / Q000523:psychology*; D014481:United States; D000092864:Suicide Prevention