“Living like I am in Thailand”: stress and coping strategies among Thai migrant masseuses in Oslo, Norway

Abstract

BackgroundMigrants experience stress before, during and after migrating to a new country, all of which influences their mental wellbeing. In Norway, migration from Thailand is highly gendered as most Thai migrants are women who migrate to live with their Norwegian spouse. Massage shops, often owned by Thai entrepreneurs, are a locale where women use their cultural knowledge to bridge into the local economy. There is little knowledge about Thai migrant masseuses’ experience of stress in daily life and associated coping strategies. The objective of this inquiry was to examine stressors and coping strategies among Thai migrant masseuses in Oslo, Norway.MethodsWe conducted in-depth interviews with 14 Thai migrants who were working as masseuses in Oslo, Norway. We asked participants about their health, experiences of stress, and coping strategies and subsequently analyzed the data using thematic analysis.ResultsStress in participants’ lives related to settling in, loneliness, finances and spousal relationships. Of these, relationship conflict was the largest source of stress. Women largely embraced self-coping strategies and utilized Thai cultural practices and Buddhist cognitive thinking. Once relationship conflict became untenable, participants fought to change their situation. Limited fluency in Norwegian, Thai stigma about mental health and limited knowledge of the Norwegian health system were barriers to seeking healthcare.ConclusionsMigrants in our study often adopted “Thainess”, the use of Thai cultural practices and Buddhist cognitive thinking, as a strategy for coping with stress. Preferences for self-coping, mental health stigma, and linguistic competency are important considerations when designing mental wellbeing interventions for Thai women. Use of an interpreter or systems navigator can help overcome language barriers. Clinicians can take detailed case histories to better understand Thai patients’ stress, coping strategies and wellbeing. Health policy makers could consider network approaches, including using Thai health systems navigators to bridge the health system and Thai communities.

Acculturative stress and coping among migrant workers: A global mixed‐methods systematic review

“…The qualitative studies focused on sport players (Egilsson & Dolles, 2017), health professionals (Melby et al, 2008; Schilgen et al, 2019; Xu et al, 2008), highly skilled workers (Lee et al, 2016), and low‐skilled workers (Tschirhart et al, 2019; Weishaar, 2008, 2010). The quantitative studies were conducted among white‐collar or highly skilled workers (Selmer & Leung Alicia, 2007) and low‐skilled workers (Capasso et al, 2018; Vergara & Noom, 2014).…”

“…Interviews and the focus group discussion were mostly conducted in participants’ native language by a bilingual author who collected the data or through interpreter's assistance. Participants were sampled purposively, in which snowball sampling was particularly used in three studies (Melby et al, 2008; Tschirhart et al, 2019; Weishaar, 2008, 2010) and stratified sampling was used in one study (Schilgen et al, 2019). Sample sizes ranged from 8 to 24 with an average of 12 participants for the interviews and 17 participants in one focus group discussion.…”

“…Sample sizes ranged from 8 to 24 with an average of 12 participants for the interviews and 17 participants in one focus group discussion. Several approaches were used in analyzing the data, including phenomenology (Egilsson & Dolles, 2017; Melby et al, 2008; Schilgen et al, 2019), grounded theory (Lee et al, 2016), and thematic analysis (Tschirhart et al, 2019; Weishaar, 2008, 2010).…”

“…Summary of quality appraisal for each study is presented in Appendix . Three of seven qualitative studies (Melby et al, 2008; Tschirhart et al, 2019; Xu et al, 2008) were deemed high‐quality studies because they satisfied all of 10 critical appraisal checklist criteria (Lockwood et al, 2015). The two least addressed criteria were related to researcher reflexivity.…”

“…This sub‐theme also covered language skills where inadequate language skills led to frustration, feeling useless and helpless, and embarrassment, which both low and highly skilled migrant workers experienced. This acculturative stress was experienced mainly by migrants with very different native language from the host country, for example, Thai masseurs in Norway (Tschirhart et al, 2019), which was not found among South Korean migrant workers in Japan who share the same language root (Lee et al, 2016). Interestingly, some low‐skilled Polish migrant workers reported that they were overqualified for their simple and monotonous job, which was not stimulating their creative and critical thinking (Weishaar, 2008, 2010).…”