Asian Americans and Mental Health: Cultural Barriers to Effective Treatment

Speller, Heather

doi:10.6017/eurj.v1i1.8880

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 27 publications

(11 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Furthermore, language acculturation does not help increase their level of antidepressant use. These results conform to previous research that reveals a consistent pattern, over several decades, of Asian Americans’ underutilization of mental health services [13, 27], and, consequently, these findings have implications for prevention and intervention efforts targeting Asian immigrant descendants.…”

Section: Discussion and Practice Implicationssupporting

confidence: 90%

“…Individuals with frequent foreign language use and limited English skills have tremendous difficulties communicating their health problems to English-speaking monolingual clinicians and lack the language repertoire for medical terms to express their symptoms. Those with frequent foreign language use may also have stronger attachment than English speakers to their parents’ cultural values and beliefs that view mental health problems as personal issues that should be solved by self-effort instead of seeing them as illness that need medical treatment [13]. Thus, we incorporate foreign language use with family to predict that those who speak a foreign language at home are less likely to receive antidepressant treatment for their depressive symptoms than their monolingual English-speaking counterparts.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Depression and Antidepressant Use Among Asian and Hispanic Adults: Association with Immigrant Generation and Language Use

Chen

Hussey

Monbureau

2017

J Immigrant Minority Health

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This research investigates the psychological well-being and usage of medical treatments by Asian and Hispanic immigrant descendants. Using data from all four waves of Add Health study, this paper focuses on two outcomes: (1) depression and (2) levels of antidepressant use by race/ethnicity, immigrant generation, and linguistic acculturation levels during adulthood. Findings reveal that depression is prevalent among Mexican Americans, other Hispanics, and Asian Americans. Furthermore, Mexican Americans and Asian Americans have reported a lower level of antidepressant use than whites, with Asian Americans attaining the lowest level when immigrant generation, language acculturation levels, and other socioeconomic factors are held constant. We also find that those who are linguistically less acculturated have much lower levels of antidepressant use than their monolingual English-speaking counterparts.

show abstract

Section: Discussion and Practice Implicationssupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Depression and Antidepressant Use Among Asian and Hispanic Adults: Association with Immigrant Generation and Language Use

Chen

Hussey

Monbureau

2017

J Immigrant Minority Health

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…While Asian American adolescents are still marked with the model minority stereotype, not all of them meet the expectation from their parents, schools, and community. Even though they have depression issues, they may not seek for help [36]. The COVID-19 pandemic and the recent anti-Asian violence [37][38][39] may impose extra stresses to Asian American adolescents.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigation of the Depression Status of Asian American Adolescents

Shen¹,

JM²,

Zhang³

et al. 2022

J Psychiatry Ment Health

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Depression is one of the most common mental disorders in the United States, and past studies have shown a concerning increase in the rates of depression in youth populations over time. Furthermore, depression is an especially important issue for Asian Americans because of the impact of anti-Asian violence due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While Asian American adolescents are reluctant to seek help for mental health issues, past research has found a prevalence of depressive symptoms in them that have yet to be fully investigated. There have been studies conducted to understand and observe the impacts of multifarious factors influencing the mental well-being of Asian American adolescents; however, they have been generally limited to qualitative investigation, and very few have attempted to quantitatively evaluate the relationship between depression levels and a comprehensive list of factors for those levels at the same time. To better quantify these relationships, this project investigated the prevalence of depression in Asian American teenagers mainly from the Greater Philadelphia Region, aged 12 to 19, and, with an anonymous survey, asked participants 48 multiple-choice questions pertaining to demographic information, daily behaviors, school life, family life, depression levels, school and family support against depression. Each multiple-choice question was assigned as a factor and variable for statistical and dominance analysis to determine the most influential factors on depression levels of Asian American adolescents. The results were validated via Bootstrap analysis and t-tests. While certain influential factors identified in this survey are consistent with the literature, such as parent-child relationship and peer pressure, several dominant factors were relatively overlooked in the past. These factors include the parents’ relationship with each other, the satisfaction with body image, sex identity, support from the family and support from the school. More than 25% of participants desired more support from their families and schools in handling depression issues. This study implied that it is beneficial for Asian American parents and adolescents to take programs on parents’ relationship with each other, parent-child communication, mental health, and sex identity. A culturally inclusive school environment and more accessible mental health service would be helpful for Asian American adolescents to combat depression. This survey-based study paves the way for further investigation of effective approaches for helping Asian American adolescents against depression.

show abstract

“…1 Evidence has demonstrated the cultural and language barriers to healthcare access among people with Asian origins. 2 Asian Americans are characterized with diverse ethnic groups with unique cultural values and traditions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Telepsychiatry Services for Korean Immigrants

Shim

Lukaszewski

et al. 2012

Telemedicine and e-Health

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Asian Americans often face cultural and language barriers when obtaining mental health treatment. With the small number of Asian mental health providers, it is difficult to ensure the linguistic and ethnic matching of providers and patients. Telepsychiatry holds great promise to address the unique needs of Asian Americans. We developed a project to establish telepsychiatry services that connect Korean mental health patients in Georgia with a linguistically and culturally competent psychiatrist in California and assessed the level of acceptability of psychiatric treatment via real-time teleconferencing among these patients. Upon the completion of the program, 16 patients (5 men, 11 women) completed a questionnaire that measured their acceptability of the telepsychiatry service. The findings indicate a high level of acceptance of the program among Korean patients. The quantitative and qualitative data show that they especially appreciated the cultural sensitivity of the consultation and the comfortable interaction with the provider. However, challenges such as technical issues of teleconferencing may negatively affect the quality of the clinical interaction. Our study expands the knowledge base regarding the acceptability of such services to a population that experiences disparities in mental health care. Future research should extend telepsychiatry services to other Asian population groups that experience lower access to mental health services.

show abstract

Asian Americans and Mental Health: Cultural Barriers to Effective Treatment

Cited by 4 publications

References 27 publications

Depression and Antidepressant Use Among Asian and Hispanic Adults: Association with Immigrant Generation and Language Use

Depression and Antidepressant Use Among Asian and Hispanic Adults: Association with Immigrant Generation and Language Use

Investigation of the Depression Status of Asian American Adolescents

Telepsychiatry Services for Korean Immigrants

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About