Experiences of Social Support Among Chinese Immigrant Mental Health Consumers with Psychosis

Public Health Research on Severe Mental Conditions Among Immigrant Communities in the United States: Strategies From a Qualitative Study with South Asian Immigrants in New York City

Introduction

The study of severe mental conditions has primarily remained under the purview of basic and clinical research. Although global epidemiological data indicate that immigrant groups are at higher risk of these conditions, U.S. data are lacking. Qualitative studies can be an important first step to bring attention to understudied phenomena.

Methods

This manuscript describes strategies used to conduct semi-structured, in-depth individual interviews on experiences and perceptions of severe mental conditions among South Asian individuals with psychiatric diagnoses (n=21), family members (n=11), and clinicians (n=4) in New York City. These strategies were synthesized from the team's internal notes of adaptations during the study design and data collection, weekly debrief meetings during data analysis, and brainstorm sessions for this manuscript.

Results

The main results of the study are reported elsewhere. This section focuses on lessons learned to improve immigrant participant interest and engagement, including the strengths and limitations of the healthcare setting; recruitment by a multilingual South Asian psychiatrist; interviews by non-clinical South Asian researchers selected for a variety of ages, genders, and languages; and the interview process and content.

Discussion

Overall, these strategies show the feasibility of non-clinical researchers to collect high-quality data about severe mental conditions among immigrant communities, noting that the details of specific strategies and results will be particular to each immigrant community. Public health research on severe mental conditions is essential to understand and address the experiences of severe mental conditions among immigrant communities in the U.S.

Mental Health and its Influencing Factors Among Immigrants with Chronic Diseases in China

Immigrants are a special group in society, and their health is of great concern. Few studies have targeted this population in China. A cross-sectional descriptive correlational study was conducted from July to August 2018 in Hubei Province, China. Chi-square tests, Z-tests and multivariable linear regression analysis were performed to analyze the data using SPSS 24.0. A total of 1068 questionnaires were distributed. The results showed that the variables that affected the mental health of the immigrants with chronic diseases included gender, annual income, life events (L), negative emotion (NE), negative coping styles (NC) and objective support (OS) (p ≤ 0.05). Future research should focus on the physical and mental health of different immigrant groups and design effective, individualized interventions to improve the health status of immigrants, especially those with chronic diseases.

Ethnic density, social support, and loneliness among Chinese immigrants in Philadelphia

Living in more 'ethnically dense' areas is thought to promote health, possibly by facilitating social support and a sense of belonging. Because of kin networks and cultural obligations, family relationships may be particularly important for Asian immigrants. Chinese-origin individuals are the largest group of Asian Americans and among the most highly segregated, but the psychosocial benefits of living in Chinese neighborhoods are not established. We examined whether Chinese immigrants in areas of higher ethnic density report more social support from family and friends, and less loneliness. For 606 participants recruited 1/2016-5/2019 throughout the Philadelphia region, residences were linked to American Community Survey 2013-2017 data. Ethnic density, operationalized as percent of Census tract residents who were Chinese, was categorized into quintiles. Family/friend support and loneliness were self-reported, then dichotomized to distinguish high levels of family support, friend support, and loneliness. In logistic regression adjusting for age, sex, and individual- and tract-level socioeconomic characteristics, ethnic density was associated with high family support (odds ratio (OR) 1.85, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.09, 3.11) for highest vs. lowest ethnic density quintile)) and inversely associated with loneliness (OR 0.31, 95% CI 0.12, 0.79, highest vs. lowest quintile). Our findings support the hypothesis that residents of areas with higher ethnic density report more social support from family and less loneliness. Whether these benefits arise from characteristics of the community overall or from the aggregation of individual assets remains to be clarified but has implications for efforts to develop community resources that would benefit all their residents.