Department of Research Planning, Mental Health Research Institute, National Center for Mental Health, Seoul, South Korea.
Int J Soc Psychiatry. 2018 Feb;64(1):80-91. doi: 10.1177/0020764017744581. Epub 2017 Dec 12.
Married immigrant women in South Korea undergo a wide array of psychosocial challenges in the process of adapting to a new culture and marriage with a Korean husband. For an integrative understanding of women's mental health status and to determine the key risk and protective factors, we systematically reviewed empirical articles about the mental health of married immigrant women.
We searched and reviewed articles from nine online databases: PubMed, Scopus, PsycINFO, Embase, DBpia, KISS, KMbase, KoreaMed and RISS, which were published up until January 2017. We identified 38 quantitative studies that examined psychiatric symptoms and pertinent factors for this population.
The relative risks of psychiatric symptoms among married immigrant women varied across diverse samples. We summarized the associated factors existing prior to and after marriage migration that may moderate their mental health consequences. We identified five key risk factors: acculturative stress, country of origin, family stress, domestic violence and extended family structure, and two protective factors: social support and marriage satisfaction, which were consistently supported by the included studies.
With the paucity of prospective studies, longitudinal research is needed that addresses the long-term processes of married immigrant women's psychological adaptation and the underlying risk and protective factors at diverse settlement phases. Furthermore, we suggest that future research should focus on how women's personal attributes interact with macro-level, socio-cultural contexts, including familial relationship and the community social-support system. Future evidence-based policy and interventions should comprehensively address married immigrant women's socio-cultural, economic and mental health needs.
在适应新文化和与韩国丈夫结婚的过程中，韩国的已婚移民女性经历了广泛的社会心理挑战。为了全面了解女性的心理健康状况，并确定关键的风险和保护因素，我们系统地回顾了关于已婚移民女性心理健康的实证文章。
我们从九个在线数据库（PubMed、Scopus、PsycINFO、Embase、DBpia、KISS、KMbase、KoreaMed 和 RISS）中搜索和回顾了截至 2017 年 1 月发表的文章。我们确定了 38 项定量研究，这些研究考察了该人群的精神症状和相关因素。
已婚移民女性的精神症状的相对风险在不同的样本中有所不同。我们总结了婚姻迁移前后可能影响其心理健康后果的相关因素。我们确定了五个关键的风险因素：文化适应压力、原籍国、家庭压力、家庭暴力和大家庭结构，以及两个保护因素：社会支持和婚姻满意度，这些因素在纳入的研究中得到了一致支持。
由于前瞻性研究的缺乏，需要进行纵向研究，以解决已婚移民女性心理适应的长期过程以及在不同定居阶段的潜在风险和保护因素。此外，我们建议未来的研究应关注女性的个人特征如何与宏观层面的社会文化背景相互作用，包括家庭关系和社区社会支持系统。未来基于证据的政策和干预措施应全面满足已婚移民女性的社会文化、经济和心理健康需求。
