School of Public Health, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan.
Res Dev Disabil. 2011 Nov-Dec;32(6):2027-35. doi: 10.1016/j.ridd.2011.08.009. Epub 2011 Sep 9.
The incidence of transnational marriage has increased significantly in Taiwan in recent years. Children born in immigrant families are predisposed to acculturation and learning problems. We aimed to determine if the children of marital immigrants are more depressed than children from native families, and examine the individual and joint effects of various factors on their depression risk. A cross-sectional study was performed to investigate the depression status of elementary school children in MiaoLi County, Taiwan. A total of 676 participants, including 157 children from families in which the mother was an immigrant and the father native to Taiwan, were recruited from 29 schools. A modified depression scale "Depression Screen Scale for Children and Adolescents" for domestic school children was used to determine depression status. Data which might relate to depression, including demographic, family and school variables, were collected with a structured questionnaire and analyzed with multivariate and stratification methods. The results show that 20.4% of children from immigrant mother families and 17.1% of children from native families exhibited depressive symptoms. The child-parent relationship, peer relationship and academic performance in school were found by logistic regression to be the main predictors of depression in immigrant family children. With further stratification analysis, synergistic effects in immigrant families were found between child-parent relationship and family climate and between peer relationship and academic performance, raising the risk of depression in children of marital immigrants by 7.26- and 7.71-fold, respectively. This synergistic effect was not observed in native families. This study provides significant evidence of synergistic effects between family variables and school variables which increase, up to more than 7-fold, the risk of depression in children of marital immigrants. The results provide hints to parents and teachers for improving the mental health of children in immigrant families by reducing the occurrence of depression.
近年来，台湾跨国婚姻的发生率显著增加。移民家庭的孩子容易受到文化适应和学习问题的影响。我们旨在确定婚姻移民的孩子是否比本土家庭的孩子更容易抑郁，并探讨各种因素对他们抑郁风险的单独和联合影响。本研究采用横断面研究方法，对台湾苗栗县小学儿童的抑郁状况进行了调查。共招募了 29 所学校的 676 名参与者，包括 157 名母亲为移民、父亲为台湾本地人的家庭的孩子。采用改良的儿童青少年抑郁量表“抑郁筛查量表”来确定抑郁状况。通过结构问卷收集可能与抑郁相关的数据，包括人口统计学、家庭和学校变量，并采用多变量和分层方法进行分析。结果显示，20.4%的移民母亲家庭的孩子和 17.1%的本土家庭的孩子出现了抑郁症状。亲子关系、同伴关系和学校的学业成绩通过逻辑回归分析被发现是移民家庭孩子抑郁的主要预测因素。进一步分层分析发现，在移民家庭中，亲子关系和家庭氛围之间以及同伴关系和学业成绩之间存在协同作用，使婚姻移民子女患抑郁的风险分别增加了 7.26 倍和 7.71 倍。在本土家庭中没有观察到这种协同作用。本研究提供了重要证据，表明家庭变量和学校变量之间存在协同作用，使婚姻移民子女患抑郁的风险增加了 7 倍以上。这些结果为父母和教师提供了重要的启示，通过减少抑郁的发生，改善移民家庭儿童的心理健康。
