Impact of immigration related factors on acculturative stress and depression in Asian American immigrants

The experience of immigration is not uniform for all immigrants, and this diversity with its accompanying acculturative stressors has a differential impact on their mental health status. Limited research has been done to understand the effect of immigration related factors on acculturative stress and mental disorders, particularly in Asian Americans. This study will investigate the relationship of acculturative stressors (legal, contact loss, discrimination) to Major Depressive Episode Lifetime (MDE-Lifetime), moderated by the impact of three immigration related factors: reasons for immigration, age at immigration, and years spent in the U.S. Data was from the 2002-2003 National Latino and Asian American Study (NLAAS). Logistic regression analyses were used to estimate the main effect of acculturative stressors, and interaction effect of acculturative stressors and immigration related factors on MDE-Lifetime, controlling for age, gender, marital status, education, household income, employment status, and acculturation. Legal stressor (OR =1.75, 95%CI: 1.07-2.83) and discrimination stressor (OR =1.72, 95%CI: 1.18-2.49) were significant in predicting MDE-Lifetime. Significant interaction between age at immigration and legal stress in predicting MDE-Lifetime seen, especially in those who immigrated between18-34 years (OR= .12, 95% CI: .03-.53) and 35 years and older (OR =. 02, 95% CI: .00-.56). Significant interaction between years spent in the U.S. and discrimination stressor in predicting MDE-Lifetime seen, especially in the U.S. for 5-10 years (OR = 8.48, 95% CI: 2.37-30.30) and 11-20 years (OR= 9.50, 95% CI: 3.04-29.68). Legal and discrimination stressors are associated with depression, but in different ways based on immigration related factors.