Acculturation factors in relation to depressive symptoms in Taiwanese immigrant women

Background:In the past two decades, a total number of around 420 thousands of immigrant women through marriage went to Taiwan. These immigrant women suffered from many dimensions of acculturative stress which may cause depressive symptoms. However, few studies have explored which dimensions of acculturative stress display influences on depressive symptoms.Methods:The study recruited immigrant women from one county in central Taiwan. Women who married from Southeastern Asia countries within 20 years were included in this study. All participants underwent an interview to assess their depressive symptom scores by using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D). Acculturative stresses in terms of residential years in Taiwan, literacy, occupational type (fulltime job, part-time job, and no job) of immigrant women, and family income were analyzed in this study to examine their effects on depressive symptoms with one-way ANOVA analyses and multiple linear regression models.Results:A total number of 199 immigrant women from five countries (Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand, and mainland China) were included in this study. Among the acculturative stress analyzed, only occupational type of immigrant women showed a significant effect (F = 6.85, p = 0.0013) on CES-D, showing that immigrant women with a fulltime job were less likely to have depressive symptoms, albeit such effect turned to be insignificant when controlling for other factors.Conclusions:Immigrant women through marriage in Taiwan with a fulltime job represent their experiencing a better acculturation process therefore prevent them from suffering from mental problems such as depressive symptoms.