Ahmad Farah, Shik Angela, Vanza Reena, Cheung Angela M, George Usha, Stewart Donna E
University Health Network, Women's Health Program, University of Toronto and St. Michael's Hospital, Inner City Health Research, 70 Richmond St East, 4th Floor, 30 Bond St, Toronto, ON, M5G 2N2, Canada.
Women Health. 2004;40(4):113-30. doi: 10.1300/j013v40n04_07.
This qualitative research aimed to elicit experiences and beliefs of recent South Asian immigrant women about their major health concerns after immigration.
Four focus groups were conducted with 24 Hindi-speaking women who had lived less than five years in Canada. The audiotaped data were transcribed, translated, and analyzed by identification of themes and subcategories.
Mental health (MH) emerged as an overarching health concern with three major themes i.e. appraisal of the mental burden (extent and general susceptibility), stress-inducing factors, and coping strategies. Many participants agreed that MH did not become a concern to them until after immigration. Women discussed their compromised MH using verbal and symptomatic expressions. The stress-inducing factors identified by participants included loss of social support, economic uncertainties, downward social mobility, mechanistic lifestyle, barriers in accessing health services, and climatic and food changes. Women's major coping strategies included increased efforts to socialize, use of preventative health practices and self-awareness.
Although participant women discussed a number of ways to deal with post-immigration stressors, the women's perceived compromised mental health reflects the inadequacy of their coping strategies and the available resources. Despite access to healthcare providers, women failed to identify healthcare encounters as opportunities to seek help and discuss their mental health concerns. Health and social care programs need to actively address the compromised mental health perceived by the studied group.
这项定性研究旨在了解近期南亚移民女性在移民后对其主要健康问题的经历和看法。
对24名在加拿大居住不到五年的讲印地语的女性进行了四个焦点小组访谈。对录音数据进行转录、翻译，并通过识别主题和子类别进行分析。
心理健康成为一个总体健康问题，有三个主要主题，即对心理负担的评估（程度和一般易感性）、压力诱发因素和应对策略。许多参与者一致认为，心理健康在移民后才成为她们关注的问题。女性使用言语和症状性表达来讨论她们受损的心理健康。参与者确定的压力诱发因素包括社会支持的丧失、经济不确定性、社会地位下降、机械的生活方式、获得医疗服务的障碍以及气候和饮食变化。女性的主要应对策略包括增加社交努力、采用预防性健康措施和自我意识。
尽管参与研究的女性讨论了多种应对移民后压力源方法，但女性认为自己心理健康受损反映出她们的应对策略和可用资源不足。尽管可以获得医疗服务提供者的帮助，但女性未能将就医视为寻求帮助并讨论其心理健康问题的机会。健康和社会护理项目需要积极解决研究群体中存在的心理健康受损问题。
